ALLIANCE FOR SCIENCE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Event Coordinator
- Coordinator for Cornell University 's Department of Global Development College
Anna serves as event coordinator for Cornell University's Department of Global Development College in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), working across its several projects. She joined the CALS team seven years ago when she moved to the United States from Ukraine, her home country. Back in Ukraine, Anna had broad experience working both in the education and business fields. She earned her master's degree in psychology and linguistics from Donetsk National University, Ukraine. Anna enjoys her meaningful work in the area of international agriculture and loves her active lifestyle in Ithaca, NY.
Job Titles:
- CEO and Executive Director of Farming Future Bangladesh
Arif Hossain is the CEO and executive director of Farming Future Bangladesh (FFB), a Dhaka-based comprehensive communications and community engagement organization that operates in collaboration with the Cornell Alliance for Science. Arif is a 2015 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow and remains a Visiting Fellow and Honorary Visiting Scientist at Cornell's Department of Global Development. Arif is the former communications director of the Feed the Future South Asia Eggplant Improvement Partnership. He previously worked as the senior specialist in outreach and communication at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Arif is passionate about science communication and loves photography and playing guitar in his leisure time.
Job Titles:
- Multimedia Specialist
- Video Producer
Chris Knight is an international cinematographer and video producer with a strong background in agriculture. He is also an education technology deployment specialist, audio-visual event services technician, photographer and sound recordist. Chris earned his Bachelor of Science degree in radio and television from Ithaca College.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Professor
Dr. Anthony (Tony) Shelton is an international professor of entomology and associate director of International Programs for Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).
In 2015, he became director of the $4.8 million USAID-funded project on using insect-resistant eggplant (Bt brinjal) in Bangladesh and the Philippines. Dr. Shelton's research program is responsible for developing sound integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for vegetables with spin-offs for other crops. Components of his program stress insect population ecology, biological control, plant resistance, agricultural biotechnology, insecticide resistance, insect movement, trap cropping, and plant productivity and marketability as a function of insect infestations.
In the last 20 years, a considerable amount of his effort has been devoted to risk assessment of insect management strategies, especially insect-resistant genetically engineered crops. The program has a strong commitment to outreach education for the agricultural community and the general public.
Dr. Shelton has received many awards, including the Entomology Society of America's (ESA) National Award for IPM (1995), the NYS Award for Excellence in IPM (2007), the ESA National Recognition Award for Research (2005), Cornell (CALS) Award for Applied Research (2007), the ESA L.O. Howard Award (2011) and the ESA National IPM Team Award (2013). In 2010, he was elected an ESA Fellow.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Chief Scientist for the Leichtag Foundation
As chief scientist for the Leichtag Foundation, Dr. Ari Novy is responsible for advancing and disseminating scientific knowledge, establishing a strategic scientific R&D and outreach roadmap and conducting original scientific research with strategic partners.
Dr. Novy is a plant biologist with a wide range of expertise in plant science and education. He started his career in student support services with New York University. He then worked as an estate gardener in Italy, researched sustainable agriculture in the Philippines, and served as an environmental consultant on infrastructure projects in the northeastern United States.
Dr. Novy is an active researcher, holding an appointment as a research collaborator at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Botany Department. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers and regularly speaks on various horticultural and botanical topics nationally and internationally.
Dr. Novy completed his bachelor's degree at New York University and his doctorate at Rutgers University. He was born in Michigan, but grew up in New Jersey. He currently lives in Encinitas, California, with his wife and two sons.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Project Manager for the NextGen Cassava
Chiedozie Egesi is project manager for the NextGen Cassava breeding project and works as a senior scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria. He is also an adjunct professor of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University.
Egesi has previously served as an assistant director at the National Root Crops Research Institute in Umudike, Nigeria. He has led efforts to develop several improved varieties of cassava, including pro-vitamin A cassava, and provide those new varieties to Nigerian farmers.
His research activities involve the use of cross-cutting biotechnology tools in the genetic improvement of cassava, including transgenic technologies. Egesi supports several African NARS cassava breeding programs in developing adaptive breeding schemes. He has previously worked as a university teacher and a yam breeder in Nigeria and has participated in the development and release of yam varieties.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Professor
Eric Yirenkyi Danquah is a professor of plant genetics at the University of Ghana's College of Basic and Applied Sciences. Dr. Danquah also serves as the director of the Biotechnology Centre at University of Ghana and is the founding director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, which was established at the university in 2007 to train a new generation of plant breeders to develop improved varieties of staple crops.
He is a board member at the UK-based Planet Earth Institute and a former chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Mines and Technology in Tarkwa, Ghana.
Dr. Danquah recently led the WACCI hybrid maize development project, which has released three high-yielding hybrid maize varieties currently being commercialized for nationwide cultivation in Ghana. His WACCI-led project has evolved into one of the largest plant breeding PhD programs in the world.
Dr. Danquah holds a BS degree in agriculture (crop science) from the University of Ghana, a MPhil degree in plant breeding and a PhD in genetics from the University of Cambridge, UK.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Head of the Microbiology Department of the University of Cape Town
Dr. Jennifer Thomson is the head of the Microbiology Department of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is also the director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Laboratory for Molecular and Cell Biology.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Director for Eastern Africa Hub
Dr. Leena Tripathi is the Director for Eastern Africa Hub and Leader of the Biotechnology Program at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). She is leading the transgenic and gene editing research at IITA. She has been involved in plant biotechnology research for more than 25 years, with specific interests in crop improvement. Her focus is on "Science to Practice" and linking scientific innovations to practical applications to solve food production issues worldwide. Her primary research focuses on genetically improving important staple food crops like banana/plantain, cassava, enset (false banana), and yam to control diseases and pests. Her scientific contributions have been recognized internationally through several awards and honors, such as excellence awards for outstanding scientist and publications. She has been honored as an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for contributions to Agriculture.
Dr. Tripathi and her team have established a robust genetic transformation platform at IITA-Kenya to develop transgenic and gene-edited products and transfer these technologies to national agricultural research systems in sub-Saharan Africa. She collaborates globally with advanced labs in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, as well as with national partners in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda, and various regional partners. She is also serving as Editorial Board Member for Plant Biotechnology Journal, Communication Biology, Frontiers in Genome Editing, Scientific Reports, and Plant Cell Reports. Leena obtained her Ph.D. in plant molecular biology and M.Sc. in molecular biology and biotechnology. She worked at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro before joining IITA.
Job Titles:
- Global Coordinator of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri - Biotech Applications
Dr. Maha Arujanan is the global coordinator of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). She is also the executive director of the Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC). In both positions, she is working in the developing world to create the political will to embrace innovations brought about by modern agribiotechnology.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Dr. Mary Mangan has been fascinated with biology since spending her summers on the New Hampshire coast, engrossed by the tide pools. This led to a B.Sc. degree in microbiology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a master's degree in plant cell biology from Mount Holyoke College and a PhD in cell, molecular, and developmental biology from the University of Rochester.
Moving to bioinformatics and genomics as those fields emerged, she finds databases are the new tide pools for her - and new waves keep washing interesting things in.
Dr. Mangan co-founded OpenHelix, a company that provides awareness and training on open source genomics software tools. She has published numerous articles and studies on biology, biotechnology, biometrics, and genomics. An overview of her publications can be found on her Google Scholar profile and the OpenHelix blog on bioinformatics and genomics can be found here.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Director of the Plant Transformation Facility at Cornell University
- Member of the Editorial Board of the CRISPR Journal
Dr. Matthew Willmann is the director of the Plant Transformation Facility at Cornell University. Dr. Willmann has 25 years of plant science research experience, having studied in several fields, including plant transformation and genome editing, plant pathology, plant development, plant small RNA biology, and plant genomics.
He received his undergraduate degree in general plant science from Cornell University in 1999 and his PhD in genetics from Harvard University in 2004. After postdocs at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Willmann returned to Cornell in January 2016 as director of the CALS Plant Transformation Facility (PTF). PTF is a service facility that makes transgenic and CRISPR/Cas9 genome-edited plants for Cornell and external faculty. The facility also conducts research to develop transformation protocols for previously untransformed plants and methods for transgene-free CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing.
Dr. Willmann is a member of the editorial board of The CRISPR Journal, a new journal about genome editing. In an attempt to increase the acceptance of plant biotechnology, he has given many talks for the public about how transgenic and genome-edited plants are made.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Distinguished Professor
Dr. Pamela Ronald is a distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center at University of California, Davis. She also serves as the director of grass genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute in Emeryville, California, and as the faculty director of the UC Davis Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy.
Her laboratory studies the genetic basis of resistance to disease and tolerance to stress in rice. Together with her collaborators, she has engineered rice for resistance to disease and tolerance to flooding, which seriously threaten rice crops in Asia and Africa.
Dr. Ronald and her colleagues received the USDA 2008 National Research Initiative Discovery Award for their work on rice submergence tolerance. She has also been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Journalism Award, the Louis Malassis International Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food, and the Tech Award for innovative use of technology to benefit humanity.
Dr. Ronald has been published in a number of national and international media outlets and is a blogger for Scientific American's "Food Matters" blog. She is a co-founder of Biology Fortified Inc., an independent educational non-profit organization, and co-authored "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food" with her husband, Raoul Adamchak.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Dr. Sheila Ochugboju is a futurist, international development expert and communication specialist who has been working in research science and international development for more than 15 years. She most recently served as Head of Strategic Communications for the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). In addition to senior management roles in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, she has worked with international think tanks, various United Nations agencies, multilateral institutions and philanthropic organizations across Europe, Africa and Asia. Sheila is an inaugural TED Africa Fellow and co-founder of Africa Knows, a knowledge management and media consultancy. She earned a Bachelor of Science in medical biochemistry and a Ph.D. in plant biochemistry from the University of London and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in baculovirus expression at the University of Oxford. Sheila, who has four grown children, currently resides in London and will be relocating to Ithaca, New York.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Policy and Regulatory Affairs
Greg works part-time as the associate director of policy and regulatory affairs. He is also the director of the Project on Biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit consumer organization located in the United States. He came to CSPI in 2001 after a long and distinguished career in government service as a trial attorney for the US Department of Justice's Environmental and Natural Resources Division and as senior counsel with the US Environmental Protection Agency's Air Enforcement Division. He is a recognized international expert on agricultural biotechnology and biosafety and has published numerous articles and reports on those topics. Greg has worked on biosafety regulatory issues in the US and throughout the world including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria Malawi, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. He was a member of the US Secretary of Agriculture's Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture from 2003-2008 and was reappointed for a new term in 2011. Greg earned a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in biology and government from Wesleyan University and a law degree from Harvard Law School.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Investment Analyst at Blue Mountain
Ian Gazard is a partner and investment analyst at Blue Mountain in New York, an asset manager with $22 billion in funds under management. Since 2004, he has been responsible for analyzing investments in the metals, energy, and packaging/paper industries. Prior to Blue Mountain, Gazard worked as an analyst for JP Morgan in New York and Australia and for Moody's Investors Service in Australia.
Since 2007, he has been an active supporter of the Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental/conservation group. He attended the Global Food Security Conference at Cornell University in October 2015 and recognized the valuable work of the Cornell Alliance for Science and has been an active supporter ever since.
Gazard grew up in Australia and is a dual citizen of Australia and the United States. He completed his economics degree at the University of Calgary in Canada in 1986. He now lives in New York City with his wife and two teenaged children.
Jayson is a 2015 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow. He holds a master's degree in business administration from Idaho State University. Jayson is a veteran of multiple science and justice advocacy campaigns. He has experience in management, strategic planning, communications, and education. As a speaker, he's appeared before UN ambassadors, farmers, science enthusiasts, and university audiences. His interests include the intersection between technology and food justice. When not at work, Jayson is frequently found playing soccer with friends around the parks of Salem, Oregon.
Job Titles:
- Communications Consultant
- Managing Editor
Joan has extensive experience as a journalist and editor. She specializes in environmental issues, biotechnology, and agriculture, and is especially interested in how these highly charged topics are playing out globally. Joan has reported internationally, scripted and produced documentaries, contributed to academic publications, and authored travel guides. She also provides strategic communications consulting services. Joan holds a BA in history and journalism. She lived and reported in Hawaii for nearly three decades before relocating to the high desert of New Mexico.
Job Titles:
- Journalist
- Kenya / Africa Correspondent
Joseph Maina is a Kenyan journalist based in the verdant and agriculturally rich Nyandarua County. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and media studies from the University of Nairobi. For the past decade, Joseph has served as a professional correspondent for various print and digital publications in his native Kenya, as well as Rwanda and South Africa. He is passionate about news and feature writing, with a demonstrated aptitude in travel, environment, climate change, culture and human-interest journalism.
Joseph Maina has been published in Msafiri (Kenya Airways inflight magazine), Real Estate Investors Magazine (a South African real estate magazine), Daily Nation (Kenya's largest circulation newspaper), The Standard (Kenya's second-largest), Sawubona (South African Airways inflight magazine), Inzozi (Rwandair inflight magazine), financialday.com, The Star and PD newspapers of Kenya, Health Business magazine and Safari Njema, a road safety monthly magazine based in Nairobi.
Joseph has now concentrated his passion on science, agriculture and health journalism. His work appears in scienceafrica.co.ke, farmersreviewafrica.com, panafricanvisions.com, africabusiness.com and other pan-African publications.
Whenever he can spare a minute, this closet philosopher loves to indulge in hearty conversations in whatever company he can find, ideally over some good coffee or nyama choma, the grilled meat delicacy popular in his native Kenya.
Job Titles:
- Ghana Correspondent, Training Team
Joseph is a broadcast and online journalist with the Multimedia Group Limited in Ghana, working with Joy FM, Joy News TV, and www.myjoyonline.com. He works on the Environment Desk, producing documentaries, news reports, and feature articles on agriculture, the environment, and rural development. He has a master's degree in communications studies from the University of Ghana, and is a member of the Ghana Association of Agricultural and Rural Development Journalists and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA). He was awarded the 2015 GJA prize for Best Journalist in Poverty Alleviation Reporting for "Poor Millionaires," his story about cocoa farmers. His main interest is telling the story of how farmers and rural residents struggle to survive, with the objective of bringing development to their communities. He is a 2016 Cornell Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow.
Juliett is the Communications Director at the Alliance for Science, coming from almost two decades of media, advocacy, and development communications work. She is passionate about how communication changes minds, triggers behavior change, and improves the lives of the vulnerable. She has previously worked with other organizations that shared this goal, such as UNICEF, CARE International, and the Rockefeller Foundation, where she provided strategic communications to multi-sectoral initiatives covering Africa and beyond. She has worked in agriculture and food security, gender and children's rights, youth employment, health, resilience, economic inclusivity, and state capacity. She holds a BA in journalism and international relations from the United States International University - Africa and an MA in development communication from Daystar University. She lives in Nairobi, enjoys learning, teaching, exploring different art forms, and keeping up with her two young boys, who keep her life constantly energized.
Job Titles:
- Mexico Correspondent, Training Team
Luis is a biologist at the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with an Academic Stay at the Department of Biotechnology and Bioengineering at the Research Center and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico (IPN). He has expertise in biosafety, including the Mexican Regulatory Framework, and risk assessment, as well as in science communications. He is a member of Mexican Scientist Allies for Knowledge in Agriculture (Científicos Mexicanos Aliados por el Saber en la Agricultura, C-MASA) and he is also a 2016 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow and trainer. Luis is convinced that the dissemination of science is essential to promote society's acceptance of biotechnology. He believes that climate change is real, that vaccines work, and that the GMOs are safe.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Manager and Project Coordinator of Stakeholder Advocacy at the International Rice Research Institute
Ma. Aileen Alcos Garcia is the manager and project coordinator of stakeholder advocacy at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), where she has worked since 2011.
Prior to joining IRRI, Aileen spent more than 13 years working on communication programs for government projects related to animal health, poverty alleviation, research and development and socioeconomic research. She has also worked in Singapore with a food and beverage trade association advocating for sound policies that promote public health, food safety and trade harmonization.
She holds a bachelor's degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
Aileen said that the GLFP will provide a perfect opportunity for interaction with other biotech advocates around the world, providing a platform for sharing local experiences and lessons learned by others while creating a global perspective to the issues surrounding biotechnology.
Job Titles:
- Communications Strategist, Climate Lead
Mark Lynas is an environmental activist and author of six books. He's written extensively about the climate crisis and authored one book on biotechnology. His most recent title is "Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency." Mark also advises former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed on climate, and works with the 48-member Climate Vulnerable Forum. He lives in Wales.
Job Titles:
- Social Media Coordinator, Training Team
Modesta is a 2015 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow and a doctoral student of horticultural sciences at North Carolina State University. She is also a member of the Alliance for Science training team. From 2013- 2018, Modesta worked with the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), Nigeria chapter, where she planned and implemented educational outreach engagements on biotechnology among diverse stakeholders. She has also been widely involved in grassroots campaigns geared towards creating an enabling policy environment for farmers to gain access to new agricultural innovations in Nigeria. Through her awareness and advocacy efforts, she contributed to the passage of Nigeria's biosafety bill into law, and the commercialization of Bt cowpea in Nigeria. Modesta obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, Nigeria, and an MSc in horticultural science from the University of Florida in the United States. She is a co-founder of the African Researchers Network of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB-ARN), which seeks to improve diversity and representation of African researchers in international plant biology meetings. She is also a fellow of the AgBioFEWS, an NSF-funded program that examines the science, policy, and public engagement impacts of agricultural biotechnology on food, energy, and water.
Job Titles:
- Communications Specialist
- Member of the Advisory Board
Nancy Muchiri is a communications specialist with a valuable blend of technical and strategic leadership capability spanning more than 20 years with private and not-for-profit organizations.
She is currently the senior manager for communications, advocacy, and strategic partnerships at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), a Sub-Saharan Africa organization that facilitates public/private partnerships for access and delivery of agricultural technologies for use by smallholder farmers.
Muchiri holds a master's degree in organizational development from the United States International University in Kenya, and a bachelor's degree and postgraduate diploma in mass communications from the University of Nairobi. She previously worked with the SOS Children's Villages, where she established and headed the fundraising and communication department, and was the head of public relations for the East African Portland Cement Co. Ltd.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Nassib is a 2015 Cornell AFS Fellow who is currently a doctoral student of agricultural and extension education at North Carolina State University. He is also a member of the Alliance training team. From 2014-19, Nassib worked with the National Agricultural Research Organization in Uganda, where he spent most of his time in educational and outreach engagements on biotechnology among smallholder farmers. Previously, he worked on a collaborative research project between farmers, Makerere University, and University of California at Davis to improve production and marketing practices for vegetable crops in Central Uganda. Nassib is interested in the role of emerging scientific technologies in transforming small-scale farming systems. He has been widely involved in grassroots campaigns geared towards creating an enabling policy environment for farmers to gain access to new agricultural innovations in Uganda. Nassib has a BSc. in agriculture, and an MSc. in agricultural extension education from Makerere University-Kampala. He is also a 2018 Generation Fellow with the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, California-based environmental policy think tank that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Editor With Leadership Newspaper
- Nigeria Correspondent, Training Team
Nkechi is a deputy editor with Leadership Newspaper, a national publication headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria. She frequently covers biotechnology and biosafety issues. She is involved with the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology, Nigeria Chapter; the National Biotechnology Development Agency; the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations; and the Nigerian Institute of Management. She has a bachelor's degree in English language and literature, and is currently completing her master's degree in English language at Nigeria's Nasarawa State University. She is a 2016 Cornell Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow.
Nyasha is a Mastercard Foundation scholar from Michigan State University who majored in plant breeding, genetics and biotechnology. She is also a BSc honors graduate in biotechnology from Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe. Nyasha served as the 2016 AGCO Africa Ambassador, advocating for agricultural reforms across the African continent. More recently, she was a speaker at the 2019 Oxford Farming Conference. She also participated in the World Food Prize's Borlaug Dialogue in both 2014 and 2018. Additionally, she is a member of the Global Farmers Network, a proud Global Youth Ambassador fellow of the United Nations initiative "A World at School" and a 2016 Young African Leaders Initiative fellow as an emerging young leader. She was a 2019 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow. Her dream is to help her continent see the importance of biotechnology in agriculture and use it to improve the livelihoods of African smallholder farmers.
Pablo is the Alliance for Science's Global Policy Lead and a member of the training team. He has a background in international trade and aid law, as well as experience in the development of public-private endeavors. He currently consults for the Guatemalan government and private firms, and encourages the entities to engage in social enterprise activities. Pablo's passion is addressing social and environmental needs through scientific, technological, and market innovations, and progressive legal solutions. He has a bachelor's degree in judicial and social sciences, is an attorney at law and notary public in Guatemala, and was awarded the degree of Master of Laws in international law with distinction from the University of Bristol, England.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Chief Executive Officer of Replenish Farms
Patience Koku is the chief executive officer of Replenish Farms, which produces rice, soya, maize, vegetables and seed in Nigeria. A former fashion entrepreneur, Patience took up farming in pursuit of a more meaningful occupation. She is a global advocate for smallholder farmers and access to improved seeds. Patience is also the Alliance for Science 2018 Farmer of the Year.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director for Africa
Patricia is passionate about Africa and the need to have African voices at global decision-making tables. Hence partnerships and capacity building are topmost on her agenda. As the debate over modern biotechnology rages, Patricia speaks about the need for Africa to decide whether she needs this technology - not foreigners deciding the continent's fate. She contributes towards this by fostering partnerships that ensure a concerted voice is raised in support of Africa's need for modern biotechnology. Patricia doubles as the Alliance's director of training, leading a capable team of trainers who empower others with knowledge, skills, attitudes, and platforms to speak up and demand agricultural technologies that serve them best. In a bid to ensure that the story of African innovation is told in a form that is popularly understood, she started Science Stories Africa. She is journalist by training and holds an MSc in Science Communication from the University of Edinburgh. Patricia joined the Alliance as a 2015 Global Leadership Fellow. She is a Ugandan and lives in Nairobi with her daughter. If she's not at home watching YouTube videos about fitness or Christian sermons, you'll find her walking, biking, jogging, or looking for a trail for her next jog.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Researcher in the Lab of Angela Hancock
Pádraic Flood is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Angela Hancock at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany specializing in population and quantitative genetics, photosynthesis, and natural genetic variation. He completed his BSc. at University College Dublin Ireland and his PhD at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Flood's research is broadly on how plants adapt to different environments. To address this basic question, he uses a combination of quantitative and population genetics, fieldwork, and high-throughput phenotyping.
Currently, he is focused on how African populations of the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana have adapted to unique and challenging environments ranging from tropical mountains to semi-deserts. This entails a lot of fieldwork to find and sample populations in the field and then bring them back where they can be grown in controlled conditions and compared to standard reference lines.
When not in the field, greenhouse, lab or behind the computer, Flood is active in communicating science directly to the public. This is something he finds both fun and important, especially in our current climate of fake news and alternative facts. It's his belief that now, more than ever, scientists need to engage with the public.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board