Meredith Perry

Meredith Perry is an associate director on the Environmental and Social Innovation team within the Strategic Philanthropy pillar at the Milken Institute. Perry designs and delivers incentive programs that blend research, relationships, and resources to activate social change.

Perry brings more than 20 years of experience eliciting evidence, facilitating unexpected coalitions, and surfacing breakthrough innovations to address seemingly intractable issues. After several years working at academic research institutes, Perry joined Scientists Without Borders, where she first applied open innovation methods to global development challenges. In 2013, she began working with the US Agency for International Development to advance its approach to open innovation, eventually joining the agency in 2020. In addition to drafting innovation policy documents, toolkits, training, evaluations, and reports, Perry has designed, implemented, or contributed to more than 45 open innovation competitions, including prizes, challenges, and grand challenges. Her portfolio has supported more than 1,000 innovators tackling challenges related to anticorruption, agriculture, climate resilience, conservation, data, digital development, education, energy, entrepreneurship, gender, migration, public health, and youth.

In addition to her work at the Milken Institute, Perry teaches master’s students “Social Innovation for Human Development” as part of Georgetown University’s Global Human Development program. 

Perry holds degrees in government and international relations from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s degree in international and area studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Perry has represented the United States’ interests in social innovation in international fora, including before the United Nations. Perry is based in Washington, DC.