Harry Bader is the Acting Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab, where he oversees the Lab and its operations.

Prior to joining the Lab, Bader was a professor of environmental and polar security studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has also worked as the Arctic Region Manager for the Alaska State Department of Natural Resources, where he supervised the conservation, development, and protection of oil, mineral, timber, wildlife, water, and wilderness resources. Bader, who has a JD from Harvard University and is completing a doctorate at the Yale University School of Forestry, has worked on humanitarian and natural resource management projects in more than a dozen countries.

From 2009-2011 he served with USAID in the Office of Civilian Response. He is the recipient of the USAID 2011 Award for Heroism related to actions while co-leading the Natural Resources Counterinsurgency Cell in eastern Afghanistan.