IRRI - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Regional Director, IRRI - Africa
- Regional Representative for Eastern and Southern Africa
Job Titles:
- Post - Doctoral Fellow - Plant Breeding
Abhinandan S. Patil is a Plant Breeder and Geneticist currently working on rice biofortification (Zn and Fe), healthier rice, traits genetics, agronomical evaluations, and marker-assisted golden rice (GR2E) introgressions in six popular rice varieties of the Philippines.
Previously, he worked as a researcher in the Plant Genomics and Breeding Institute, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, South Korea. He also did two post-doctoral fellowships in the Agricultural Research Organization-Volcani Center, State of Israel / Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Israel. His research work focuses on improving plant-based crops like rice, capsicum, and peanut for yield and component traits via field, molecular, and transgenic plant breeding.
Abhinandan holds a BSc in Agriculture from Mahatma Phule Agricultural University, MSc Agriculture from Anand Agricultural University, and PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding from Junagadh Agricultural University in India.
As IRRI's Research Director, Ajay leads the Institute's research quality and delivery strategy to meet the needs and expectations of donors, investors, partners, and stakeholders. Most recently, he held the post of Research Director for Planning and Delivery.
Background and experience
Prior to Ajay's Directorships, he led IRRI's Strategic Innovation Platform where he supervised a team of 15 international scientists and almost 100 staff members primarily in the application of fundamental sciences such as genomics, genetics, and bioinformatics instruments. His platform identified genes and provided genetic materials and associated information, enabling the institute's rice breeders and physiologists to harness upstream research into translational research through a highly interdisciplinary approach.
Ajay has also led IRRI's Plant Molecular Biology Group for the past 10 years. Under his leadership, the group gained recognition in gene discovery and characterization in environmental stress tolerance of rice, particularly in improving yield under drought conditions.
Ajay brings 30 years of experience in upstream research, innovation, and leadership in the agricultural sector with positions in India, UK, USA, and the Philippines, and research stints in Europe and Africa.
Education
Ajay holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the John Innes Centre, UK and M.Tech. and BS degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur and the Lucknow University, respectively. With more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, Ajay continues to guide laboratory research but is institutionally committed to bridging the upstream science to applied science for impact on the society and environment through rice-based food systems.
Job Titles:
- Corporate Services Manager - Africa
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for Mozambique
Alexis leads all aspects of IRRI's breeding work in East and Southern Africa (ESA).
In close collaboration with other IRRI breeders, molecular breeders, pathologists, physiologists, and national partners, Alexis develops new products for lowland rice ecologies and their major market segments in East and Southern Africa. This includes excellent grain quality and tolerance to major stresses such as drought, bacterial leaf blight, blast, and cold.
Alexis also helps organize the Annual Rice Breeders Workshop for IRRI - East and Southern Africa, which he previously attended as a participant. He sees the biggest challenge for rice breeding in Africa is successfully combining high quality traits with favorable agronomic traits that ensure high yields and grain quality.
He is also responsible for managing the IRRI office and overseeing other projects such as PROIRRI in Mozambique.
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for Mozambique
Job Titles:
- Africa Regional Director for the World Wildlife Fund
- CGIAR System Board Member
Ms. Ruhweza is the Africa Regional Director for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), overseeing a regional program comprised of 13 countries, 600 staff, and a budget of USD 130 million a year. She is currently leading the design of a new conservation framework that brings together work at the national, transboundary and global levels, linking program ambition to delivery for the first time, and making the case for "collective impact" at scale. She is also leading the development of a new system of quality assurance that goes beyond compliance and uses risk management as a strategic tool, emphasizing adaptive management, stakeholder engagement, and continuous dialogue.
Before joining WWF, Ms. Ruhweza was the Vice President of Programs and Partnerships of Conservation International, leading the articulation, development, and implementation of the Africa Field Division Programme Strategy, with a focus on ensuring clear and tangible conservation outcomes and seamless application and synergy with country and global program strategies. She was previously with the United Nations Development Programme as the Team Leader and Technical Adviser for Environmental Finance, Africa Region. In this role, she successfully managed a program supporting 44 sub-Saharan African countries, designed and implemented projects/programs putting in place the right mix of policy, regulatory, and financial incentives to attract and drive public- and private-sector investments towards addressing their sustainable development priorities. The program successfully mobilized USD 600 million over six years, which with co-financing, made it the largest environment program in the United Nations. Most of the funding for which she was responsible came from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and other public-sector partnerships with strict fiduciary requirements. She sits on the Board of the Global Ever-Greening Alliance and is a Sustainable Agriculture Intensification Commissioner.
Ms. Ruhweza brings an extensive experience working at the intersection of conservation and development in Africa and globally, fostering successful partnerships with a wide range of international institutions, including the World Bank, United Nations, African Union, and European Union. She has substantial experience of working with and influencing high-level government officials and other senior stakeholders as well as mobilizing resources from diverse sources, including the GEF and GCF. She also demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the centrality of farming systems in delivering multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
Job Titles:
- CGIAR System Board Member
- Head of International Communications at Deutsche Telekom
Ms. MacDonald-Baertl was previously the Head of International Communications at Deutsche Telekom where she was responsible for its communication strategy in over 50 countries including from acquisition to post-merger integration, product launch, stock communications. She has also worked as an International Brand Manager with TSystems in Germany. She is a member of the Executive Board of the UnternehmensGruen (German Federation of Green Economy), a nonpartisan, non-profit, and financially independent entrepreneurs' association that campaigns for the protection of the environment and a sustainable economy, and is in constant dialogue with policymakers, both at German state and federal level. She is a former Board Member of the European Sustainable Business Federation.
Ms. MacDonald-Baertl brings a valuable, dynamic, and energetic entrepreneurial perspective and approach in a broad international development context, coupled with a passion for the role of research and evidence-based change and strong knowledge and engagement of sustainable business in midcap/SME sector, as well as experience of organizational change and successful lobbying skills.
Ms. MacDonald-Baertl advises on green turnaround strategies, sustainable finance market strategies, and multi-beneficiary stakeholder projects for boards and companies that want to adapt to new market conditions brought on by the green or social economy. Over the last five years, she has written market strategies for over EUR 4 billion of green investments, impacting over 3,000 organizations. Clients range from the European Commission to mid-cap companies in a variety of industries from Europe to Australia. She advises governments, various industry bodies, and unilateral organizations specializing in generating systems change and brings these groups together.
Ms. MacDonald-Baertl founded a social enterprise company to grow and process cacao into chocolate in Ecuador, Philippines, and Papua New Guinea (where her family farmed rubber). While producing chocolate that is highly rated in technical assessments, the initiative increases farmer livelihoods. She also founded the CACAO.academy operating from a One Health model which builds nurseries and delivers cacao farmer education to improve farmers' health, wealth, and crop yields. The organization has directly trained over 2,000 farmers and seen marginal improvements in living income profit and increase in available household nutrition.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist II - Stress Physiology and Research Unit Leader - Traits for Challenged Environments, Rice Breeding Innovations
Job Titles:
- Ex - Officio Member - University of the Philippines ( UP ) President
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist I - Rice Breeding and Biofortification
Job Titles:
- Research Institute / Ministry of Agriculture
Job Titles:
- Platform Leader - Sustainable Impact through Rice - Based Systems
Job Titles:
- Country Representative - Thailand and Senior Scientist for Climate Change
- Country Representative for Vietnam
Job Titles:
- Chairman, Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Regional Program Leader for Southeast Asia
Job Titles:
- Corporate Services Manager - IRRI Bangladesh Office and Southeast Asia Offices
Job Titles:
- Liaison Scientist - Tanzania
Job Titles:
- CGIAR System Board Member
Job Titles:
- Representative
- Representative for Bangladesh and Senior Agricultural Economist
IRRI lead scientist Jauhar Ali interviewed on arsenic-safe rice project, grand prize winner of the Global Food System Challenge
IRRI Director General Jean Balié met with Honorable Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Shri, Yogi Adityanath on 22 April in Lucknow, to secure the strong and continued support from the State Government...
Job Titles:
- Director of the Pan Africa Bean Research Alliance
- Leader of the Bean Programme
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director General for Strategy, Engagement, and Impact
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for Burundi
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for Nepal
Job Titles:
- Chairman, CGIAR System Board
by Gene Hettel Two future World Food Prize Laureates, Dr. Swaminathan (1987) and Gurdev Khush (1996), confer in the IRRI rice research plots in 1984. (IRRI file photo) Eminent agricultural scientist...
Job Titles:
- Chief Information Officer
Job Titles:
- CGIAR System Board Member
Job Titles:
- CGIAR System Board Member
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for India
- Country Representative for India and Research Leader - Gender & Livelihoods
Job Titles:
- Corporate Services Manager
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for the Philippines
Job Titles:
- Country Representative for Kenya
- Country Representative for Tanzania
Job Titles:
- Liaison Scientist / Rice Research
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director - IRRI South Asia Regional Centre