Melissa McCracken is a Research Affiliate in the Water Governance Department at IHE Delft. She is an assistant professor of international environmental policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. In addition, she co-directs the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and is an affiliate of the Center for International Law and Governance at Fletcher.
Her research focuses on international water policy, management, cooperation, and conflict over shared surface and groundwaters. Her current work addresses how transboundary water cooperation is defined and measured, with the goal of operationalizing a method for evaluating effective transboundary water cooperation. She directs the Shared Waters Lab, which is a research partnership with IHE-Delft and Oregon State University focusing on transboundary water cooperation and conflict, including the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database that monitors hydropolitical tension and identifies factors that contribute to potential conflict or cooperation, including research on international freshwater agreements, river basin organizations, and events over freshwater. She has a Ph.D. in Geography from Oregon State University, an M.Sc. in Water Security and International Development from the University of East Anglia, and a B.S. in General Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.