Our Team

Katrina Burgess, Ph.D.

Director, Henry J. Leir Institute

Professor of Political Economy

Office: Cabot 603c

Email: Katrina.Burgess@tufts.edu

Dr. Katrina Burgess is Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She has published widely on labor politics, migration, remittances, and diasporas, including her most recent book, Courting Migrants: How States Make Diasporas and Diasporas Make States (Oxford, 2020). She is also writer and producer of Waylaid in Tijuana, a 2020 documentary about Haitian and Central American migrants whose journeys to the United States are disrupted by shifts in U.S. policy. Her current project, Securitization Without Security: How Migration is Reshaping the Global Order, brings together a multidisciplinary team of scholars from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and the School of Social & Political Sciences (SSPS) at the University of Glasgow. This four-year project investigates how Western migration securitization policies may be reshaping the global order at both state and non-state levels. The research is guided by a central question: To what extent, and in what ways, does the securitization of migration and displacement pose a threat to global peace and security?

She previously taught at Brown University, Syracuse University, UCLA, and the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) and received her PhD in Politics from Princeton University.

Marcela Millan, MALD F05

Associate Director, Henry J. Leir Institute

Office: Cabot 603

Email: Marcela.Millan@tufts.edu

Marcela Prieto-Millan joined the Leir Institute as a full-time Associate Director in January 2024. Marcela graduated with a Fletcher MALD in 2005. During her time at Fletcher, Marcela focused her studies on issues related to migration and remittances and served as a research assistant to Dr. John Hammock, Associate Professor of Public Policy.

She presented her capstone as a panelist at Harvard University’s Colombian Migration Conference, where she showcased her project titled “Impact of Remittances on Colombia.” After graduating, she worked alongside Adjunct Lecturer Lawrence Harrison as a program officer for Fletcher’s Cultural Change Institute. In 2008, Marcela moved to Hong Kong with her husband and two children, where they lived for fifteen years before returning to the Boston area in the summer of 2023. While in Hong Kong, Marcela built on her entrepreneurial experience by founding two businesses and continued to hone her professional skills through volunteer, advisory, and board roles with the Hong Kong International School, the Girl Scouts of the USA, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Fletcher School’s Hong Kong Alumni Club.

Prior to Fletcher, Marcela worked in financial advertising and marketing. She is a proud alumna of the Universidad Externado de Colombia.

Chris Hauptfeld

Program Coordinator, Henry J. Leir Institute

Office: Cabot 603

Email: Christopher.Hauptfeld@tufts.edu

Chris Hauptfeld joined the Leir Institute in September 2024 as a Administrative Coordinator. Originally from Connecticut, Chris obtained his undergraduate degree at Middlebury College. He later earned an MAT from Brown University with a concentration in Secondary Mathematics, and completed a capstone project focused on the intersection of mathematics and social justice. Before coming to Leir, he taught math at Narragansett High School in Rhode Island.

Chris provides a wide range of administrative support to the Leir Institute, including onboarding students and contractors, reconciling Leir-related expenses, assisting with event planning, and tracking Leir budgets.

Sara Sharpe, MALD Candidate

Communications – Editor, This Week at Leir, Henry J. Leir Institute

Email: Sara.Sharpe@tufts.edu

Sara Sharpe is a first-year MALD student at Fletcher concentrating in Human Security and Humanitarian Affairs, as well as Global Governance and International Organizations. She graduated from the University of Vermont in 2021 with a BA in Spanish and Global Studies. After graduation, Sara moved to Spain to work as an English Language and Culture Ambassador through the Spanish Ministry of Education. She has a strong interest in migration and labor rights, shaped by her experience researching migrant farmworkers’ dental health and advocating for immigrant workers through legislative and community-focused initiatives.

At Fletcher, she is an organizing chair for the Decolonizing International Relations Conference and co-director of the Fletcher Latin America Group. Sara looks forward to contributing to the Leir Institute’s work and deepening her understanding of migration issues.

Emmy Todd, MALD Candidate

Social Media, Henry J. Leir Institute

Email: Emily.Todd@tufts.edu

Emmy Todd is a first-year MALD student studying Global Governance and International Organizations and Human Security and Humanitarian Affairs. After she graduated from The College of Wooster in 2022 with a BA in Political Science, she worked in DC and was a Fulbright grantee in Hungary for the 2023-2024 academic year.

At Fletcher, Emmy is a research assistant on a project on representation in intergovernmental fora and on a project studying Convention on the Rights of the Child violations by the Taliban.