Senior Fellow
Michael C. Durst
Michael C. Durst is a long-time US tax practitioner, an author on international taxation and developing countries, a former government official and law professor, and an ICTD researcher. He has practiced extensively in the field of international taxation, both in the private sector and in the US government, as Director of the IRS Advance Pricing Agreement Program. Michael has published many articles, in both academic and professional journals, on issues of international taxation, particularly as they affect developing countries. Recently, with support from ICTD, he has completed an extensive analysis of the legal and administrative aspects of implementing a system of unitary taxation.
Researcher (BEPS and Beyond)
Dr. Alexander Ezenagu
Dr. Alexander Ezenagu is a legal practitioner called to the Nigerian bar. He obtained his doctorate degree in International Tax Law at McGill University, Canada, and holds a Master of Law degree (LL.M) from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is an Associate Research Fellow (Trade, Investments and Public Private Partnerships), at the Institute for Oil, Gas, Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development (OGEES Institute), Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti, Nigeria. As a researcher, Alexander focuses on international tax law and policy issues, with emphasis on the relationship between taxation and economic development and on the role of government and non-government institutions and actors in the creation of tax policy norms.
Nigerian Tax Research Network Coordinator
Michael Falade
Michael Falade is an international development researcher and evaluation professional with more than a decade of work experience on various DFID and other international organisations funded research projects. He is interested in policy-centered interventions focusing on governance, agriculture, public health, and other social issues as well as in development intervention evaluations. Michael holds a Master’s degree in public health. Prior to joining the NTRN, Michael worked as a public policy analyst and research associate at a Lagos Policy Think Tank.
Senior Fellow
Professor Odd-Helge Fjeldstad
Professor Odd-Helge Fjeldstad is an economist working at CMI, Norway, focusing on public sector reforms, mainly related to taxation and revenue administration; including tax evasion, fiscal corruption, capital flight, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and local government tax reform. Fjeldstad has extensive experience from research and policy analysis in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Middle East. He has also been advisor for several African governments on public financial management, and has worked as consultant for bilateral and multilateral development organisations, including DFID, Norad, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, OECD, IFC and the World Bank.
Research Fellow
Dr. Martin Hearson
Dr. Martin Hearson researches the politics of international business taxation, and in particular the relationship between developed and developing countries. He uses field interviews, archival documentation and novel datasets to study how international tax agreements are negotiated. Before joining ICTD, he was a fellow in international political economy at the London School of Economics, teaching courses on political economy and global financial governance. He spent a decade working in the charity sector, and continues to collaborate with development NGOs and intergovernmental organisations in much of his research.
Capacity Building Manager
Dr. Jalia Kangave
Dr. Jalia Kangave has over ten years of experience in the fields of taxation and law and development working in academia, the private and government sector, civil society organizations and international organizations. Dr. Jalia is currently Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and the Capacity Building Manager with the ICTD, and as such is the primary contact for all enquiries regarding building links, partnerships and developing capacity of researchers and affiliated organisations to better undertake and disseminate high quality research effectively and efficiently.
Communications Assistant
Stephanie Lenz
Stephanie Lenz is based at the Institute of Development Studies. While completing her Bachelor’s degree in International Development with Economics, she began working as a graphic designer and found an interest in media production. She continued her studies at Sussex, studying an MA in Media Practice for Development and Social Change, where she produced several short documentaries and infographic designs on environmental sustainability. She assists Rhiannon in communications and media work relating to ICTD.
Research Director
Dr. Giulia Mascagni
Dr Giulia Mascagni‘s main research interests relate to taxation, public finance, aid effectiveness, economic development and evaluation of public policy. She is an economist and did her PhD at the University of Sussex (Department of Economics). Giulia is currently a Research Fellow in the Governance Team at the Institute of Development Studies, UK. She is also the Research Co-Director at the ICTD.
Research Uptake and Communications Manager
Rhiannon McCluskey
Rhiannon McCluskey is based at the Institute of Development Studies. She completed her MA in Governance and Development, writing her dissertation on the effectiveness of donor initiatives to build capacity in international taxation in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Kenya. She has also conducted research on social accountability for the Swiss Development Cooperation and the Making All Voices Count Programme. She is responsible for the development and implementation of the research uptake and communications strategy across the ICTD’s programmes. She leads on research dissemination via various channels, and is the primary contact for stakeholder relations and the media.
Senior Fellow
Andualem T. Mengistu
Andualem T. Mengistu is Director of the Macroeconomics and Trade Centre at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI); Research Director of the Ethiopian Tax Research Network (ETRN); and an actively engaged ICTD researcher. Andualem received his PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics, while his thesis focused on the workings of the monetary markets of developing countries and addressed such issues as whether the East African Community countries are ready to form a monetary union. His current research interests focus on monetary policy in less developed monetary markets and tax systems in developing countries.
Project Support Officer
Rhea Millward-Thompson
Rhea Millward-Thompson studied her Bachelors degree in Politics and Sociology. During this time, she developed an interest in international relations and development. She is now based at the Institute of Development Studies where she works as Project Support Officer within ICTD. She is responsible for providing administrative and general support to the team with travel, events and information management.
Chief Executive Officer
Professor Mick Moore
Professor Mick Moore is a political economist. He has done extensive field research in Africa and Asia, especially Sri Lanka, Taiwan and India. His broad research interests are in the domestic and international dimensions of good and bad governance in poor countries. He focuses specifically on taxation and governance, and is the founding Chief Executive Officer of the International Centre for Tax and Development. He is also a Professorial Fellow in the Governance Team at the Institute of Development Studies, UK.
Researcher in International Tax (Tax Treaties)
Catherine Ngina Mutava
Catherine Ngina Mutava is the Associate Director of the Strathmore Tax Research Centre. She holds a Masters in Laws in International Taxation (LLM) from New York University and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi. Previously she worked as a tax researcher in Netherlands at the International Bureau for Fiscal Documentation (IBFD), an organization that specialises in tax research and cross-border taxation, and was involved in the in depth tax research on tax systems of nine African countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Gambia, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Liberia. She has worked with KPMG, one of the leading tax firms in the country, and has been involved in the set up and running of tax departments for two leading law firms in the country.
Research Associate
Nicolas Orgeira
Nicolas Orgeira is working as a Research Associate, primarily on tax perception in Sierra Leone and on tax burden in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Prior to joining the ICTD, Nicolas worked on survey implementation in Ghana, France and Burkina Faso for two years, in various capacities. His work included topics ranging from early child development to local governance.
Research Coordinator, Nigerian Tax Research Network (NTRN)
Dr. Olly Owen
Dr Olly Owen is the NTRN Research Coordinator as well as co-investigator (with Dr Tom Goodfellow) on the project Taxation, Property Rights and the Social Contract in Lagos. He is an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow at Oxford Department for International Development (ODID) where he is currently working on a three-year study of new transformations in revenue and fiscal governance in Nigeria, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. At ODID he also continues work with a focus on policing structures and practices in Nigeria and work related to longstanding interests in politics and governance in the West African sub-region and in political anthropology. After working in London and Lagos, first with West African civil society groups, and then as an investment risk analyst Olly completed a DPhil at Oxford University’s Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, undertaking an ethnographic study of the Nigerian Police Force.
Senior Fellow
Sol Picciotto
Sol Picciotto (BA Oxford, JD Chicago) is an emeritus professor at Lancaster University, a Senior Adviser of the Tax Justice Network, coordinator of the BEPS Monitoring Group, and a member of the UN Tax Committee’s subcommittee on dispute resolution. His research for the ICTD focuses on the taxation of transnational corporations with special reference to developing countries. Professor Picciotto has taught at the universities of Dar es Salaam (1964-1968), Tanzania, and at Warwick (1968-1992) and Lancaster (1992-2007), the United Kingdom. Professor Picciotto was also Scientific Director of the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (2009-2011). He is the author of International Business Taxation and Regulating Global Corporate Capitalism, and of several co-written books, as well as numerous chapters and articles on various international tax issues and other aspects of international business and economic law.
Research Director
Dr. Wilson Prichard
Dr Wilson Prichard‘s research focuses on the relationship between taxation and citizen demands for improved governance in Sub-Saharan Africa. His previous work has focused on political economy in Sub-Saharan Africa, including foreign investment, the formulation of economic policy and trade liberalisation, and he has worked in several countries in Africa. Prior to the ICTD he worked as a development policy activist in Washington D.C., with a focus on HIV/AIDS and international trade. He is currently also involved in teaching economics at the University of Toronto.
Project Manager
Simon Rees
Simon Rees is based at the Institute of Development Studies and is responsible for financial administration, information management, travel management, assisting with event organisation and providing general support to the team.
Project Coordinator
Oliver Roy
Oliver Roy is based at the Institute of Development Studies where he works as Project Coordinator within ICTD. Oliver is primarily responsible for coordinating the ICTD publications process and organising both internal and external events; he also provides general coordination and administrative support the wider ICTD team.
Research Officer
Fabrizio Santoro
Fabrizio Santoro is based at the Institute of Development Studies, working as a Research Officer, primarily on a project on tax compliance in Rwanda. Fabrizio’s main research interests relate to governance, public finance, and taxation, with a strong focus on impact evaluation methodologies and statistical analysis. Holding a MSc in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi University (Milan), Fabrizio worked as Research Associate in Myanmar for a year and a half before joining the ICTD.
Research Associate
Vanessa van den Boogaard
Vanessa van den Boogaard is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation explores informal taxation and state-society relations in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She is a Graduate Fellow at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance and a Graduate Associate at the Centre for Critical Development Studies in Toronto. Her current research interests include informal taxation, taxation and gender, tax and accountability, public-private partnerships, and service delivery.
Project Leader, African Property Tax Initiative (APTI)
Dr. Nyah Zebong
Dr. Nyah Zebong has over 11 years extensive experience working with the Ministry of Finance of Cameroon on tax policy and administration issues including compliance, audits, appeals and collection. He has also recently been involved in academia as visiting lecturer of both Taxation Law and Project Finance. Dr. Nyah wrote his Ph.D thesis on taxation of the extractive industries, notably focusing on tax anti-avoidance and transfer pricing. He is now the Project Leader for ICTD’s new African Property Tax Initiative (APTI).