John Grayzel Ph.D

Dr. John Grayzel is an international development consultant and former Senior Foreign Service Officer with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where he served for nearly three decades across West Africa, the Near East, South Asia, India, the Philippines, Mongolia, and the Pacific Islands. With advanced training as both an anthropologist and a lawyer, he brings a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective to global development, peacebuilding, and institutional transformation.

He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Oregon and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School. Dr. Grayzel’s long career spans project and policy design, implementation, and evaluation, with wide-ranging contributions in socio-economic development, irrigated and dryland agriculture, pastoral systems, micro- and agricultural credit, land tenure, resilient systems analysis, decentralization and local governance, civil society strengthening, legal reform, conflict analysis, and post-conflict reconstruction.

From 2006 to 2011, he served as Professor and Baha’i Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland, focusing on peace education, moral leadership, and interdisciplinary approaches to global challenges. Since 2011, he has been an independent consultant through Crossroads of Peace, working on development, governance, education, appropriate technology, and poverty reduction initiatives. He is fluent in English and French.

Dr. Grayzel continues to advocate for practical innovation, community-centered development, and collaborative approaches to peace and resilience in diverse regions of the world.