# Joseph P. Kalt Director (Emeritus), Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy (Emeritus), Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University ![Male speaking at microphone against blue backdrop](/sites/g/files/omnuum6806/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/hpaied/files/joe1.jpg?itok=1OFAHYx7) smartphone [(617) 495-4966]() email [joe\_kalt@harvard.edu](mailto:joe_kalt@harvard.edu) Joseph P. Kalt is the Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1987, Prof. Kalt founded (with Stephen Cornell) the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development (formerly, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development). He continues to serve as the Project’s director until his retirement in June 2025. From 2000 to 2006, Prof. Kalt served as the faculty chair of the Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP), where he provided faculty support for the successful effort to secure continuously renewing University support for the Program. In 2023, Prof. Kalt and his wife, Judy Gans, endowed the Joseph P. Kalt Senior Fellowship in Indigenous Governance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, ensuring in perpetuity that among the world leaders Harvard routinely hosts will be accomplished and inspiring leaders in Indigenous governance and development. Prof. Kalt is a principal author of The State of the Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination (with the Harvard Project), co-editor and a primary author of What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in the Economic Development of American Indian Reservations (with Stephen Cornell), a principal author of Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development (ed. M. Jorgensen), and co-editor of Universities and Indian Country (with Dennis Norman). He is vice-chairman of the Board of the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, Inc., serves as a member of the Board of the Sonoran Institute, and was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Native Governance Center. Prof. Kalt has also served on the Navajo Nation’s President’s Council of Economic Advisors, is on the advisory board of the Chickasaw Nation’s Community Development Entity, and has provided advice and counsel to numerous U.S. tribes and tribal organizations, as well as Indigenous communities in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Prof. Kalt received his B.A. degree in economics from Stanford University, and his Master’s and PhD degrees in economics from UCLA. An expert in antitrust and regulatory economics, Prof. Kalt served as a senior economist with Compass Lexecon Consulting and its predecessors for more than twenty-five years before stepping down in 2019. He and his wife, Judy, now reside in Prof. Kalt’s hometown of Tucson, Arizona and in Carbon County, Montana. - ## Role [Staff](/role/staff)