Elizabeth Ferris is senior fellow in Foreign Policy and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement in Washington, D.C., where her work encompasses a wide range of issues related to internal displacement, humanitarian action, natural disasters and climate change.

Prior to joining Brookings in November 2006, Dr. Ferris spent 20 years working in the field of humanitarian assistance, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Council of Churches. There she was responsible for the Council’s work in humanitarian response and long-term development. In this capacity, she worked with many local, national and international non-governmental organizations to support capacity building and to advocate for protection of refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other populations affected by conflict.

She has also served as the director of the Church World Service’s Immigration and Refugee Program, the Research Director for the Life & Peace Institute in Uppsala, Sweden and a Fulbright Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her teaching experience has included positions at Lafayette College, Miami University, and Pembroke State University.

Her articles have appeared in Refugee Survey Quarterly, Forced Migration Review, ,Journal of Refugee Studies, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, the International Review of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and many others. Her most recent book, The Politics of Protection: The Limits of Humanitarian Action, was published by Brookings Institution Press in April 2011.

She was educated at Duke University (B.A., ’71) and the University of Florida (M.A. ’72, PhD. ’76).

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