Dr. Ruth Levine joined the Foundation in 2023 as vice president of Just Societies and chief learning officer. She oversees the Foundation’s work to build just and equitable societies and leads the Foundation’s commitment to learning and impact. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ruth was the CEO of IDinsight, a mission-driven global advisory, data analytics, and research organization that helps global development leaders in governments, multilateral agencies, foundations, and innovative non-profit organizations in Asia and Africa to maximize their social impact.
Ruth is a development economist with more than three decades of experience working on the design and implementation of policies and programs related to global health and education, social protection, gender equality, and labor markets. She is an expert on the use of data and evidence for decision-making and was a policy fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University for the 2019-2020 academic year. Prior to her fellowship at Stanford, Ruth led the Global Development and Population Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation between 2011 and 2019, overseeing a total of approximately $1 billion in philanthropic grantmaking. Previously, she was a deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning at the U.S. Agency for International Development. In that role, Ruth led the development of the agency’s evaluation policy and co-led an initiative to streamline performance measurement.
Ruth spent nearly a decade at the Center for Global Development as a senior fellow and as the Center’s first vice president for programs and operations. Earlier in her career, she designed and evaluated health and education projects at the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank.
She holds a doctoral degree jointly in economics and demography from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. from Cornell University.