Rockford Weitz, Director
Rockford Weitz, Ph.D., is Director of the Maritime Studies Program and Entrepreneur Coach at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. He also serves as President of the Institute for Global Maritime Studies Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit seeking practical solutions to global maritime challenges, and President & CEO at Rhumb Line International LLC, a consultancy providing strategic advice to entrepreneurs and startups.
In 2014, Rockford served as founding Executive Director at FinTech Sandbox Inc. From 2008 to 2013, he served as founding CEO at CargoMetrics, leading the effort to build a VC-backed financial technology business that started in his Cambridge apartment.
Prior to co-founding CargoMetrics, he was a team leader of the Fletcher Abu Dhabi Project, a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Maritime Studies, a fellow at Fletcher’s Maritime Studies Program, and a fellow at Fletcher’s Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies. He has taught courses in Jurisprudence, Maritime Security, and Global Maritime Affairs at the Fletcher School, and published op-eds in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Straits Times (Singapore), among others.
Before co-founding Rhumb Line in 2005, he served as international counsel at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc., leading the effort to open 12 international subsidiaries and streamline global operations. He also worked at the U.S. Trade Representative, and co-founded and served as Program Director of the Borgenicht Peace Initiative, a social entrepreneurship venture in Bethlehem.
Rockford earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Fletcher School, and a B.A. in International Relations: Political Economy from the College of William and Mary. He is a fellow in the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program, a member of the Fletcher School’s Advancement Council, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Matthew Merighi, Assistant Director
Matthew Merighi is Assistant Director of the Fletcher Maritime Studies Program. A graduate of the Maritime Studies Program in 2016, Matthew is also the co-founder of Blue Water Metrics, a 501(c)3 non-profit which is bringing Big Data to ocean science. A former Federal Government employee, he worked for five years as a civilian in the Air Force’s International Affairs directorate.
Luis Villegas, Senior Research Fellow
Luis Alberto Villegas is a Senior Research Fellow at the Fletcher School’s Maritime Studies Program at Tufts University, where he researches sustainable supply chains. Luis has 18 years of experience in rural development, peace building, and climate change policy in Colombia, both in the public and private sector. Luis recently served as Deputy Manager of the Colombian Government’s US$3 billion Climate Change Adaptation Fund. Previously he was a co-founder and Executive Director of VallenPaz, a successful entrepreneurship initiative that has supported over 16,000 small farmer families in conflict zones in Colombia. Luis contributed to the Colombian peace agreement by sharing the VallenPaz success story of rural development with the negotiators in Havana. He also holds an MBA and Agribusiness Engineering degree. He recently joined the Fletcher School at Tufts University as a MA student, where he plans to develop a strong public-private partnership model to help Colombia become the world’s largest sustainable avocado producer.