Glenn r. Smucker, phd

Cultural Anthropologist

Glenn R. Smucker is a cultural anthropologist who has specialized for the past 40 years in practical applications of anthropology to alleviating human problems.  Smucker holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the New School for Social Research (New York).  He has worked in Rwanda, and the Caribbean countries of Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Belize and Guyana; however, the primary focus of his professional life has been Haitian society and culture. 

Smucker is a leading specialist on Haiti.  He first came to live in Haiti as a child in 1960.  He carried out dissertation fieldwork in a northern mountain peasant community in the mid-1970s.   He subsequently published numerous articles and reports on a broad range of Haitian topics.  He authored a book on Haitian peasant organizations, and led a major policy study on the Haitian environment commissioned by the US Congress.  He recently designed a highly participatory watershed planning methodology for the World Bank.  Smucker has also served as keynote speaker for a Yale University conference on environmental stewardship in Haiti, and for annual meetings of the Haitian Studies Association, addressing the issue of environmental vulnerability.  

Smucker has directed major programs in reforestation and natural resource management.  He served as director of the Pan American Development Foundation in Haiti, which included a large scale farm forestry project.  He later led the USAID-funded Natural Resource Management Project in Rwanda, including protection of the mountain gorillas.  He has consulted for a range of donors including USAID, the Inter-American Bank, the World Bank, also the Haitian Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Agriculture, and J/PHRO, the philanthropic organization founded by Sean Penn. 

Smucker is presently based in Haiti.  He serves as a senior consultant in applied anthropology including governance, civil society, labor migration, human rights, food security, watershed management, grassroots strategies for highly participatory programming, and human dimensions of environmental protection.