Jennifer Klot, DC '86
Senior Adviser, Social Science Research Council

Jennifer F. Klot is senior adviser for two new SSRC initiatives on HIV/AIDS, and on Gender and Security. Prior to coming to the Council, she served as a senior adviser at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) on Governance, Peace and Security. There, she supported global program implementation and provided advice to country offices relating to policy, program, advocacy and institutional strengthening. In this capacity, she advised the Arusha peace process and the the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, helping to broker women's participation in these processes and ensure attention to gender issues. During her tenure at the UN, Klot additionally worked to introduce gender issues to the UN's peace and security agenda. Between 1994-2000, she served as a policy advisor on peace and security at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and directed the General Assembly-mandated UN study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, chaired by Graça Machel.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Klot served as the acting executive director for the Fund for Education in South Africa and as the regional representative for the southern Africa office of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, an international fellowship program for public entrepreneurs. She also directed a project to disseminate, research, and document indigenous music of southern Africa for performance and educational purposes, and recorded and toured internationally with the African Jazz Pioneers, a South African jazz ensemble.

Klot has been a visiting scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and received a Master’s of Regional Planning from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Economics from Douglass College, Rutgers University.