Dr. Maria Elisa Christie
Expertise: Gender, Agriculture, and Development; Qualitative Research Methods; Feminist Political Ecology; Cultural Ecology; Geography of Food, Cuisine, and Kitchenspace
Education: B.A., International Studies, History, and Romance Languages, University of Oregon, 1983; M.A., Spanish and Women’s Studies, University of Oregon, 1994; Ph.D., Geography, University of Texas at Austin, 2003.
Countries of work experience: Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, West Indies, Ecuador, Bolivia.
Dr. Maria Elisa Christie has more than 25 years of experience in international development. Throughout her career, she has worked with a variety of development, research, and non-governmental agencies around the developing world, along with local, state, and federal governments in the United States and Mexico. Christie has played a key role in launching new projects that support international collaboration. Christie’s research focuses on gendered spaces and everyday life in nature/society relations, participatory research methodologies, kitchens and gardens, and women’s reciprocity networks. She has published a book, Kitchenspace: Women, Fiestas, and Everyday Life in Central Mexico, with the University of Texas Press. More recently, she has published articles on gender and development in: the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography; Agriculture and Human Values; Development in Practice; GeoJournal; Gender, Technology and Development, Gender and Education; and the International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology.
As the director for Women and Gender in International Development (WGD), Christie’s primary role is to provide leadership within CIRED to ensure that all projects and programs are gender-sensitive and will have a positive effect on the most disadvantaged beneficiaries, many of whom are women. She has developed and facilitated workshops on gender and participatory research in the United States and in French-, Spanish-, and English-speaking countries.