Dr. Broad has a wide range of professional experience, from international economist in the U.S. Treasury Department and Congress, to work with civil-society organizations in the Philippines and El Salvador. She received her MA. and PhD in development studies from Princeton University and her BA (economics and environmental studies) from Williams College. She is author/coauthor of books including Development Redefined: How the Market Met Its Match, Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy, Plundering Paradise: The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines, and Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines.
Her current research and advocacy work centers on “responsible mining policy” with specific work in El Salvador, the Philippines, and Costa Rica, and related to the investor-state disputes at the World Bank Group's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). (See, for example) She is an active "scholar participant" in the movement to create a more just and sustainable economic globalization. She has been cofounder of networks to link academics and practitioners, including International Allies (of the Roundtable against Metallic Mining in El Salvador) and the Philippine Development Forum. Dr. Broad has received grants/fellowships for her work, including from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Association of Asian Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also widely published in academic and policy publications, including The Journal of Peasant Studies, Third World Quarterly, Foreign Policy, World Development, World Policy Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.