Chloe Schwenke

Dr. Chloe Schwenke is an international public policy adviser, development ethicist and practitioner, human rights scholar and activist, researcher, and educator. Her career has focused on LGBTQ+ issues, inclusive development, gender equality/equity, democracy/governance, and human rights. She recently completed serving as the Team Leader for a 6-month Inclusive Development Assessment in India – the first and largest such study ever undertaken for USAID anywhere -  while simultaneously working with others to start the operations of the new non-profit Center for Values in International Development, where she serves as its first president. Chloe’s development practitioner career covers project experience in over 40 countries, and 15 years of residence in Africa. She has served as a political appointee at USAID under the Obama Administration, as Senior Advisor on democracy, human rights, and governance in sub-Saharan Africa, and on LGBTQ+ issues globally.

Her memoir, SELF-ish: a transgender awakening, was published in May 2018 (Red Hen Press). Her first book Reclaiming Values in International Development: The Moral Dimensions of Development and Practice in Poor Countries (Praeger) was published in 2008. She has also written chapters for nine edited volumes, including the just-published Trans Lives in a Globalizing World: Rights, Identities and Politics, edited by J. Michael Ryan (Routledge). Chloe earned her Ph.D. in policy studies at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and she was Alumna of the Year for 2013. In that same year, she was awarded a National Public Service Award by the National Center for Transgender Equality.