Michael Woolcock is Lead Social Development Specialist and Senior Social Scientist with the Development Research Group, and a Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His research focuses on the role of social and political institutions in shaping the survival and mobility strategies of the poor. He is co-chair of the Bank's Social Capital Thematic Group, and contributed to both the 2000/01 and 2006 World Development Reports. Prior to joining the Bank in 1998 he taught at Brown University and the University of Queensland (Australia). He has undergraduate degrees from the University of Queensland, a graduate diploma in teaching from Queensland University of Technology, and an MA and PhD in sociology from Brown University.