Ag Sector Council Seminar

David J. Spielman joined the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in 2004, and is currently a senior research fellow based in Washington, DC. His research agenda covers a range of topics including agricultural science, technology and innovation policy; seed systems and input markets; and community-driven rural development. Prior to this, he worked on agriculture and rural development issues for IFPRI in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and the Aga Khan Development Network in the Pakistan. His work maintains a regional emphasis on East Africa and South Asia. Spielman received a Ph.D. in Economics from American University in 2003, an M.Sc. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics in 1993, and a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University in 1992.

Nicholas joined IFPRI in 2010 as a postdoctoral fellow, and now serves as a research fellow. His current and previous research spans the areas of technology adoption, climate change adaptation, sustainable agriculture and natural resource use, drought and pest risk, imperfect markets and property rights, and food security. He received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California-Davis in 2010, and also holds a B.S. in Biology from University of Wisconsin-Madison and M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Colorado State University. While completing his degree he concurrently worked on food security issues in the Middle East and North Africa region for the World Bank. He has done field work in India and Morocco.

Joan Whelan is the Knowledge Management Senior Specialist for the USAID/Food for Peace-funded TOPS Program, as well as chair of the Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) Network’s Knowledge Management Task Force. Through both mechanisms, she works to encourage cross-organizational collaboration and program learning. She and her team are currently planning a large East Africa knowledge sharing meeting to be held in Addis in June 2012, carrying out a review of organizational practices in knowledge sharing amongst food security implementers, and preparing to launch TOPS’ new food security web portal, fsnnetwork.org, which will feature an implementation focused library of tools, guides, manuals and other resources, Task Force workspaces, and periodic topic-specific discussion forums to encourage peer-to-peer dialogue between food security practitioners.

Andrea Bohn is the Project Manager for the Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS) Project, funded by USAID. She is stationed at the University of Illinois. Her role with MEAS involves coordinating nine partner institutions, more than 110 potential faculty collaborators, and work in more than 20 countries. Previously, she worked on the Worldwide Extension Study, implemented by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in collaboration with FAO and IICA, with funding from USAID. From 2002 to 2010 she was an Assistant Dean in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She managed all education abroad programs sponsored by ACES and promoted student participation in a broad portfolio of international learning experiences. Prior to that, she worked at the University of Hohenheim in her home country, Germany. She coordinated the prestigious “Modularization” project for implementing a modular course structure and introducing Bachelor and Master Programs in Agricultural Sciences.

Meaghan Murphy is a Food Security and Agriculture Program Manager at The QED Group. She currently manages knowledge and learning activities implemented through the Food Security/Ag Program of the Knowledge-Driven Microenterprise Development (KDMD) Project with USAID's Bureau for Food Security. Murphy is committed to leveraging technical good practice in food security and agriculture through innovative knowledge management and knowledge sharing activities. She is a food security specialist with nine years of international and domestic project design, management, and implementation experience. She has a MS from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University where she focused on Food Policy and Applied Nutrition. Her work experience includes countries in Latin America, Africa and Central Asia.