Marie-Claude Martin is a CIGI senior fellow, effective December 2014. She is currently the Director, Special Initiatives at the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development at the University of Toronto. Her work focuses on the development of a global partnership to build and promote interventions aimed at supporting the healthy development of children and youth in low and middle income countries and to foster a sustainable alliance of knowledge producers and users around the globe.
Prior to joining the FMIHD, Marie-Claude spent three years as Associate Director and then Director of the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti in Florence, Italy where she provided leadership for the development of an UNICEF-wide research agenda and helped disseminate and apply research findings to policy development, advocacy and programming. Before that, she served in a number of senior positions at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) including heading the Think Tank Initiative and managing a global portfolio of research projects in health equity and financing, social protection, poverty and human development. Marie-Claude holds an MA in development economics and a Ph.D. in Public Health.
Her areas of research include human development, child wellbeing, poverty analysis, inequality, health financing and determinants of population health.