Jeanine Braithwaite is Professor of Public Policy, General Faculty, at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Prior to joining the Batten School in 2009, she was a Senior Economist at the World Bank, most recently in the Social Protection Group, Human Development Network.  Preceding her World Bank service, she worked at the International Monetary Fund and the US Census Bureau, on technical assistance to the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union (IMF) and to the USSR (Census Bureau).   Braithwaite has also taught at Georgetown, George Mason, American, Maryland, and Kalamazoo College.

At the World Bank, Braithwaite worked on social protection policy and poverty analysis. She specializes in the study of medium-income Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland), Turkey, and the former Soviet Union countries, and has provided policy advice to governments while on negotiating missions and staff visits. She has written many World Bank reports, including poverty assessments for Turkey, Russia, Armenia, Moldova, Hungary, and Ukraine, as well as social protection and labor reviews for Botswana, Kosovo, and Swaziland.  In addition, she has operational experience in Cambodia, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Jamaica, Jordan, Georgia, Mauritius, Kosovo, Bosnia, Romania, and Turkmenistan.

Braithwaite has conducted a program of joint research with the University of Venda and the University of Limpopo, South Africa, on poverty, social welfare, and traditional healing in Limpopo Province.  She recently completed a project on female-headed household poverty in Senegal.  Braithwaite is working with the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, as well as with Prof. Sally Pusede (Environmental Sciences UVa), on research on air pollution and poverty in Dakar. Her collaborator Kamwoo Lee (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences UVa) and she are working to produce poverty maps for Sub-Saharan African countries.

An alumna of the University of Virginia, Braithwaite served as a Resident Assistant and was an Echols Scholar and a member of the Raven, Jefferson Literary and Debating, and Omicron Delta Kappa Societies.  She went on to earn her master’s degree in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown and her doctorate in economics at Duke University.