Paula Kantor

Paula L. Kantor was a gender and economic development specialist who was killed in the 2015 Park Palace guesthouse attack.
Kantor had been working for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, as a Senior Scientist in Development and Gender at the time of the attack. She was leading a project to improve the livelihoods of people living in wheat-growing areas of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Pakistan. Prior to that position she was the senior gender scientist at WorldFish from 2012 through 2015. As part of that work, she trained and assisted NGOs in delivering gender programming to women fish retailers in Egypt. Kantor was the director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit from 2008 through 2010.

Early life and education

Kantor was born May 7, 1969, to Barbara and Anthony Kantor. She grew up in Illinois with a brother and a sister. She earned a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School in 1990, and a master's degree in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies University of Sussex. Her PhD focused on international economic development and gender which she finished at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2000. The University of Sussex has begun a named scholarship in Kantor's name.

Rethinking Rural Poverty Reduction in Afghanistan
Running Out of Options Tracing Rural Afghan Livelihoods
Securing Life and Livelihoods in Rural Afghanistan, The Role of Social Relationships
Understanding and Addressing Context in Rural Afghanistan, How Villages Differ and Why
Afghanistan Livelihood Trajectories: Evidence from Faryab
Improving Efforts to Achieve Equitable Growth and Reduce Poverty
Building a Viable Microfinance Sector in Afghanistan
From Access to Impact: Microcredit and Rural Livelihoods in Afghanistan
Delivering on Poverty Reduction: Focusing ANDS Implementation on Pro-Poor Outcomes