Melissa McCracken

Melissa McCracken is an assistant professor of international environmental policy at Tuft University's Fletcher School. She directs the Shared Waters Lab, codirects the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, and is an affiliate of the Center for International Law and Governance at Fletcher. Her research focus is on international water policy and management, cooperation and conflict over shared surface and groundwaters, and conflict transformation surrounding environmental resources. Broadly, she supports interdisciplinary research and teaching for water policy and management. 

Water is both a human and physical resource and therefore requires collaborative technical and policy solutions. Her current work addresses how transboundary water cooperation is defined and measured, with the goal of operationalizing a method for evaluating effective transboundary water cooperation. She is a collaborator with the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database at Oregon State University on additional projects to monitor hydropolitical tension and identify factors that contribute to potential conflict or cooperation, including research on international freshwater agreements, river basin organizations, and events over freshwater. 

Prior to joining The Fletcher School at Tufts University, Melissa was a postdoctoral scholar in the Program in Water Conflict Management and Transformation, as well as the manager of the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database housed at Oregon State University. She has a BS in general engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, an MSc in water security and international development from the University of East Anglia, and a PhD in geography from Oregon State University.