Sovereign Debt Forum Deputy Program Director

Georgetown University comprises two unique campuses in the nation’s capital. With the Hilltop Campus located in the heart of the historic Georgetown neighborhood, and the Capitol Campus, just minutes from the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Supreme Court, Georgetown University offers rigorous academic programs, a global perspective, and unparalleled opportunities to engage with Washington, D.C. Our community is a close-knit group of remarkable individuals driven by intellectual inquiry, a commitment to social justice, and a shared dedication to making a difference in the world.

Requirements The Institute of International Economic Law ( IIEL ) at Georgetown Law is seeking a Deputy Program Director , to assist in research, strategy, program content functions, grant administration, and outreach for the Sovereign Debt Forum ( SDF ) and its leading initiative, #PublicDebtIsPublic (# PDIP ), and t o support other IIEL projects and programs . IIEL is dedicated to creating, refining, and building the ideas that will define the international economic order in the twenty-first century.

At the heart of the Institute’s mission is a commitment to interdisciplinary, nonpartisan analysis and research into the most cutting-edge legal challenges facing practitioners and policymakers. As one of the world’s preeminent centers for international economic law and policy, located blocks from U.S. agencies and the U.S. Congress, IIEL serves as the locus of study for issues across the field, including international trade, investment, financial regulation and innovation, business, technology, tax, arbitration, development, sovereign debt, and economic security.

SDF was established in 2019 as a hub for interdisciplinary research in government debt, supporting capacity building, policy development, and research dissemination. It is a collaboration between IIEL and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London ( QMUL or Queen Mary ), co-directed by Prof. Anna Gelpern at Georgetown Law and Prof. Rosa M. Lastra at Queen Mary, with affiliated scholars at universities around the world.

Since 2019, SDF and its research affiliates have organized academic and capacity building programs with universities, multilateral institutions, governments, and civil society organizations, including its flagship Sovereign Debt Research and Management Conference ( DebtCon ), now in its ninth cycle. #PDIP began in 2025 as a cross-campus project to build a platform that collects and displays searchable full-text government debt documentation for countries around the world, working with Georgetown’s Computer Science Department and the Massive Data Institute ( MDI ) at the McCourt School of Public Policy, supported by a $382,000 pilot grant from the Gates foundation for the Law Center.

It has grown rapidly into a multi-institutional, multi-funder program. The prototype was launched at DebtCon8 in October 2025. With proof of concept, SDF secured approximately $350 in additional interim funding from the Netherlands and UK governments in Q42025 and Q12026, and has since secured an additional grant of approximately $600,000 from the Gates foundation. By invitation, SDF has applied for an additional $400,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation, expected in the current fiscal year, and is actively pursuing new funding opportunities with existing and new donors.

The #PublicDebtIsPublic platform now hosts more than 1000 documents for more than 60 borrowing countries, together with a growing bank of analytical and capacity building resources. A major new grant-funded component of the platform, the Legal Framework Hub, is under development, scheduled for launch at DebtCon9 in May of 2027. #PDIP has been featured in official and academic programs with African, Asian, European, and Latin American governments, multilateral and civil society institutions.

The #PDIP team has trained more than a dozen Georgetown Law researchers in public debt and advanced financial contract an