Ellen Houston is an adjunct professor in the International Studies Department at Manhattanville College.  She has previously taught in the departments of Economics and International Studies at Marymount College/Manhattan, New York University and Rutgers State University. Her research interests include gender and development including work on the impacts of the financial crisis and the effects of climate change on women’s well-being.  She has published work on international trade competitiveness and social policy, international migration and technological change and labour demand.  She has worked as a consultant for the United Nation in various capacities dealing with women’s issues, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), more recently on climate change and sustainable development lending her expertise as an employment expert to the SG High-level Panel on Global Sustainability and as a member of the working group on social dimensions of climate change.  Prior to her experience at the United Nations, she worked as an economist in Washington DC for the International Centre for Research on Women and for the Economic Policy Institute.