Our Team

Dr Wilson Prichard‘s research focuses on the relationship between taxation and citizen demands for improved governance in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and Department of Political Science, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and the CEO of the ICTD.

Dr Giulia Mascagni‘s main research interests relate to taxation, public finance, and evaluation of public policy in low-income countries. She is an economist and obtained her PhD in 2014 at the University of Sussex (Department of Economics). Giulia is the Research Director at ICTD. She is a Research Fellow in the Governance Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (UK), as well as Research Associate at the Institute of Fiscal Studies (UK) and Associate Fellow at Johns Hopkins University SAIS (Italy).

James Murdoch is based at the Institute of Development Studies. Prior to joining ICTD, James worked in a variety of non-profits in numerous countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Some of James’ previous positions include working as the Global Operations Manager of the Youth Career Initiative (YCI), the CEO of Camara Education Zambia, and the Communications and Fundraising Manager of Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation Vietnam. As the ICTD Programme Manager, James provides overall coordination and supervision for ICTD activities.

Simon Rees is based at the Institute of Development Studies and is responsible for financial administration, information management, travel management, assisting with event organisation and providing general support to the team.

Rhiannon McCluskey is based at the Institute of Development Studies. She completed her MA in Governance and Development, writing her dissertation on the effectiveness of donor initiatives to build capacity in international taxation in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Kenya. She has also conducted research on social accountability for the Swiss Development Cooperation and the Making All Voices Count Programme. She is responsible for the development and implementation of the research uptake and communications strategy across the ICTD’s programmes. She leads on research dissemination via various channels, and is the primary contact for stakeholder relations and the media.

Moyo Arewa is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto. He is responsible for supporting the management and implementation of the ICTD’s research and capacity building programmes, as well as helping to advance several programmes, including the African Property Tax Initiative, a new programme on taxation and digitalisation, and expanded engagement with civil society organisations. Prior to joining the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, he was a Policy Development Officer at the City of Toronto. Moyo received his Master’s degree from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Oliver Roy is based at the Institute of Development Studies where he works as Project Coordinator within ICTD. Oliver is primarily responsible for coordinating the ICTD publications process and organising both internal and external events; he also provides general coordination and administrative support the wider ICTD team.

Kate Arnill Graham is based at the Institute of Development Studies. As the Senior Project Officer, she manages the contracting and deliverables of projects, with a focus on those funded by the FCDO. Kate’s background is in managing and coordinating research and consultancy projects in both Canada and the UK. Prior to ICTD, she worked at the Institute for Employment Studies, where she was the deputy project manager on large survey projects, oversaw staff resource planning, and coordinated funding activities.

Rhea Millward-Thompson studied her Bachelors degree in Politics and Sociology. During this time, she developed an interest in international relations and development. She is now based at the Institute of Development Studies where she works as Project Support Officer within ICTD. She is responsible for providing administrative and general support to the team with travel, events and information management.

Stephanie Lenz is based at the Institute of Development Studies. While completing her Bachelor’s degree in International Development with Economics, she began working as a graphic designer and found an interest in media production. She continued her studies at Sussex, completing an MA in Media Practice for Development and Social Change, where she produced several short documentaries and infographics. Now, she works together with Rhiannon in research uptake and communications, as well as publications and media production.

Dr Wilson Prichard‘s research focuses on the relationship between taxation and citizen demands for improved governance in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and Department of Political Science, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and the CEO of the ICTD.

Dr Giulia Mascagni‘s main research interests relate to taxation, public finance, and evaluation of public policy in low-income countries. She is an economist and obtained her PhD in 2014 at the University of Sussex (Department of Economics). Giulia is the Research Director at ICTD. She is a Research Fellow in the Governance Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (UK), as well as Research Associate at the Institute of Fiscal Studies (UK) and Associate Fellow at Johns Hopkins University SAIS (Italy).

Dr Martin Hearson researches the politics of international business taxation, and in particular the relationship between developed and developing countries. He uses field interviews, archival documentation and novel datasets to study how international tax agreements are negotiated. Before joining ICTD, he was a fellow in international political economy at the London School of Economics, teaching courses on political economy and global financial governance. He spent a decade working in the charity sector, and continues to collaborate with development NGOs and intergovernmental organisations in much of his research.

Dr Vanessa van den Boogaard is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto. She received her doctorate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation explores informal taxation and state-society relations in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Vanessa leads the ICTD’s new programme on civil society engagement in tax reform, and co-leads the research programme on informal taxation with Dr Max Gallien. She also continues to be involved in our research on gender and tax.

Dr Max Gallien is a political scientist specialising the politics of informal and illegal economies, development politics and the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. He completed his PhD, titled “Smugglers and States: Illegal Trade in the Political Settlements of North Africa” at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is based in Brighton at the Institute of Development Studies and co-leads the research programme on informality and taxation with Dr Vanessa van den Boogaard, and is involved in the ICTD’s capacity building programme.

Dr Giovanni Occhiali is a Development Economist based at the Institute of Development Studies, where he will work on a number of projects related to Tax Administration and Compliance, Tax and Governance and will co-lead ICTD’s capacity building programme together with Dr Max Gallien. His research focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, and outside of the field of taxation his main interests are energy economics and industrial policies. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham and prior to joining ICTD, he was a Researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the National Revenue Authority of Sierra Leone.

Professor Mick Moore is a political economist. His broad research interests are in the domestic and international dimensions of good and bad governance in poor countries, focusing specifically on taxation. He has done extensive field research in Africa and Asia, especially Sri Lanka, Taiwan and India. He is the founding CEO of the ICTD, Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, UK, and co-author of Taxing Africa with Wilson Prichard and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad published by Zed Press London and HSRC Press Pretoria in 2018.

Professor Sol Picciotto (BA Oxford, JD Chicago) is an emeritus professor at Lancaster University, a Senior Adviser of the Tax Justice Network, coordinator of the BEPS Monitoring Group, and a member of the UN Tax Committee’s subcommittee on dispute resolution. His research for the ICTD focuses on the taxation of transnational corporations with special reference to developing countries. Professor Picciotto has taught at the universities of Dar es Salaam (1964-1968), Tanzania, and at Warwick (1968-1992) and Lancaster (1992-2007), the United Kingdom. Professor Picciotto was also Scientific Director of the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (2009-2011). He is the author of International Business Taxation and Regulating Global Corporate Capitalism, and of several co-written books, as well as numerous chapters and articles on various international tax issues and other aspects of international business and economic law.

Dr Andualem T. Mengistu is a Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute in Addis Ababa; Research Director of the Ethiopian Tax Research Network (ETRN); and an actively engaged consultant ICTD researcher. Andualem received his PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics, while his thesis focused on the workings of the monetary markets of developing countries and addressed such issues as whether the East African Community countries are ready to form a monetary union. His current research interests focus on monetary policy in less developed monetary markets and tax systems in developing countries.

Professor Odd-Helge Fjeldstad is an economist working at CMI, Norway, focusing on public sector reforms, mainly related to taxation and revenue administration; including tax evasion, fiscal corruption, capital flight, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and local government tax reform. Fjeldstad has extensive experience from research and policy analysis in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Middle East. He has also been advisor for several African governments on public financial management, and has worked as consultant for bilateral and multilateral development organisations, including the FCDO, Norad, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, OECD, IFC and the World Bank.

Michael C. Durst is a long-time US tax practitioner, an author on international taxation and developing countries, a former government official and law professor, and an ICTD researcher. He has practiced extensively in the field of international taxation, both in the private sector and in the US government, as Director of the IRS Advance Pricing Agreement Program. Michael has published many articles, in both academic and professional journals, on issues of international taxation, particularly as they affect developing countries. Recently, with support from ICTD, he has completed an extensive analysis of the legal and administrative aspects of implementing a system of unitary taxation.

Christopher Wales is an ICTD consultant working as a Senior Research Advisor for the DIGITAX programme. He has worked with Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers in many countries on economic and fiscal policy, fiscal institutions, revenue administration, labour market issues and pension policy. He was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers for the UK Government (1997-2003), led the Global Tax and Governance Team at PwC (2012-16), was a partner in the tax practice of Arthur Andersen (1990-97), was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, and later Managing Director of a life assurance company. Chris is currently Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Rwanda Social Security Board, member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and member of the Advisory Board of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, which he was instrumental in founding. He has worked extensively with think tanks and civil society. Chris has an MA in history and a PhD in medieval history, both from Cambridge University.

Fabrizio Santoro is based at the Institute of Development Studies, working as a Research Officer, primarily on a project on tax compliance in Rwanda. Fabrizio’s main research interests relate to governance, public finance, and taxation, with a strong focus on impact evaluation methodologies and statistical analysis. Holding a MSc in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi University (Milan), Fabrizio worked as Research Associate in Myanmar for a year and a half before joining the ICTD.

Moyo Arewa is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto. He is responsible for supporting the management and implementation of the ICTD’s research and capacity building programmes, as well as helping to advance several programmes, including the African Property Tax Initiative, a new programme on taxation and digitalisation, and expanded engagement with civil society organisations. Prior to joining ICTD, he was a Policy Development Officer at the City of Toronto. Moyo received his Master’s degree from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Adrienne Lees is a consultant Research Associate working primarily on projects relating to tax administration and investment, tax attitudes, and on the DIGITAX programme. Her research interests relate to taxation, public finance, and economic development, particularly for Sub-Saharan Africa. She has recently completed an Overseas Development Institute Fellowship in the Tax Policy Department at the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Uganda. Adrienne holds an MSc in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford and will begin her PhD in Economics at the University of Sussex next year.

Dr Alexander Ezenagu is a consultant Research Associate for the ICTD and Assistant Professor at the College of Law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar. A trade and tax law expert, he specializes in international tax law, domestic taxes, tax avoidance and commercial aspects of illicit financial flows, trade and investment advisory. He obtained his Ph.D. in international tax law from McGill University, Canada, and holds a Master of Law degree (LL.M) from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

As a researcher, Alexander focuses on tax law and policy issues, with emphasis on the relationship between taxation and economic development and on the role of government and non-government institutions and actors in the creation of tax policy norms.

Nicolas Orgeira is working as a consultant Research Associate, primarily on tax perception in Sierra Leone and on tax burden in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Prior to joining the ICTD, Nicolas worked on survey implementation in Ghana, France and Burkina Faso for two years, in various capacities. His work included topics ranging from early child development to local governance.

Rasmus Corlin Christensen was recently awarded his PhD from the Copenhagen Business School. His main research interest is in the political and professional foundations of the rules and practices of international taxation. Based in Copenhagen, Rasmus works with the ICTD as a consultant on research and policy engagement related to global negotiations on taxing the digitalising economy.

Dr Jalia Kangave has over ten years of experience in the fields of taxation and law and development working in academia, the private and government sector, civil society organizations and international organizations. She also previously served as the Principal of the East African School of Taxation in Uganda, worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers Uganda as a tax consultant and lectured at the Kampala International University. She holds a PhD in Law from the University of British Columbia. Jalia is currently the lead consultant for the gender and taxation programme. She is also involved in our capacity building programme.

Dr Nyah Zebong has over 11 years extensive experience working with the Ministry of Finance of Cameroon on tax policy and administration issues including compliance, audits, appeals and collection. He has also recently been involved in academia as visiting lecturer of both Taxation Law and Project Finance. Dr Nyah wrote his Ph.D thesis on taxation of the extractive industries, notably focusing on tax anti-avoidance and transfer pricing. He is now the Lead Research Consultant for ICTD’s African Property Tax Initiative (APTI).

Dr Olly Owen is the Lead Research Consultant for the NTRN as well as co-investigator (with Dr Tom Goodfellow) on the project Taxation, Property Rights and the Social Contract in Lagos. He is an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow at Oxford Department for International Development (ODID) where he is currently working on a three-year study of new transformations in revenue and fiscal governance in Nigeria, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. At ODID he also continues work with a focus on policing structures and practices in Nigeria and work related to longstanding interests in politics and governance in the West African sub-region and in political anthropology. After working in London and Lagos, first with West African civil society groups, and then as an investment risk analyst Olly completed a DPhil at Oxford University’s Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, undertaking an ethnographic study of the Nigerian Police Force.

Michael Falade is an international development researcher and evaluation professional based in Lagos, Nigeria with more than a decade of work experience on various FCDO and other international organisations funded research projects. He is interested in policy-centered interventions focusing on governance, agriculture, public health, and other social issues as well as in development intervention evaluations. Michael holds a Master’s degree in public health. Prior to his work as consultant with ICTD as the Executive Secretary of the NTRN, Michael worked as a public policy analyst and research associate at a Lagos Policy Think Tank.

Girma Gebretsadik did his Master’s degree in International Revenue Administration. He is based in Addis Ababa, and has worked with the federal revenue administration for a decade in various capacities including Head of the Large Taxpayers Office, Deputy Director General for Corporate Functions, and Head of R&D Directorate at the former Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority. He is accredited Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) Assessor and participated in the TADAT Assessment of Ethiopia and DRC. Currently, he is an independent consultant focusing on tax, as well as the Executive Secretary of the Ethiopian Tax Research Network (ETRN).

Colette Nyirakamana is an ICTD consultant who works as the Interim Programme Lead for the African Property Tax Initiative. Her research focuses on local finances, in particular the building of fiscal autonomy in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) subnational governments. She studies the reasons why, despite the significant potential of financial resources, SSA cities fail to raise enough revenue. Colette’s research draws on institutional and political economy theories to show how institutional rules and incentives and local political dynamics create favourable and unfavourable conditions for effective revenue mobilisation. Her research highlights how weak fiscal autonomy limits the capacity of cities to finance public services valued by citizens. She is completing her doctoral degree in Comparative Public Policy at McMaster University in Canada.

Soukayna Remmal is a graduate from the dual degree Master’s in Public Policy and Global Affairs at Science Po (School of Public Affairs) and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Soukayna has previously conducted research on the asymmetric interdependency between Morocco and the European Union, using migration management as a case study, and is currently researching sustainable urbanization policies for African cities as a graduate research fellow at the School of Cities (UofT).

Ruvimbo Chidziva is pursuing her Master of Global Affairs degree from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and will be graduating next Spring. After graduating from the University of Nottingham with a BA in International Relations in 2015, she worked for Christian Blind Mission (CBM) in Zimbabwe for 3 years. Ruvimbo is keen to research alternatives to foreign aid for Sub-Saharan Africa’s development given her experience of how aid dependency may be impeding the continent’s sustainable development. She works with Vanessa on the Civil Society programme.