Melissa McCracken, Ph.D.

Melissa McCracken is William R. Moomaw Assistant Professor of International Energy and Resource Policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She focuses on international environmental policy with a specialization in international water cooperation and conflict. Prior to joining the Fletcher School, I was a Post-Doctoral Scholar with the Program in Water Conflict Management and Transformation. Previously, I managed Dr. Aaron Wolf’s Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database at Oregon State University.  As part of this work, I maintained the spatial delineations of international river basins, as well as other datasets for international freshwater treaties,  conflict and cooperative events, and river basin organizations.

I recently defended my Ph.D. (Oct 2019) in Geography with a research emphasis on the effectiveness of transboundary cooperation over internationally shared waters.  I completed my Master of Science in Water Security and International Development at the University of East Anglia, under the supervision of Dr. Mark Zeitoun, where my research evaluated impacts to Yemen’s water resources from the cultivation of qat.  I also hold a Bachelor of Science in General Engineering from California State Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo.