Science Allies - Biotechnology, Agriculture, Ecology, Health, and Critical Thinking

Nextgencassava.org

nextgencassava.org

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.

Kasanda Bunda is the Principal Officer for climate change adaptation, Zambia Ministry of Green Economy and Environment.

Sheila Ochugboju speaks to Sarah Ngweya

Riaz Mulla is the executive Director of Food Secure Africa

https://foodsecureafrica.org

Dr. Channa S. Prakash is a Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) at Tuskegee University (USA) where he has served as faculty since 1989, and is professor of crop genetics, biotechnology and genomics  who is well recognized for mentoring under‐represented minority students. As Chief Academic Officer of the largest college on campus, he oversees nine departments and two programs spanning liberal arts and STEM subjects involving nearly 100 faculty members. His recent initiative was to expand eLearning offerings – increasing summer online courses from in 2015 to 31 courses in 2016. Along with the college of agriculture, he has overseen a new PhD program in Integrative Public Policy and Development.  Under Dr. Prakash’s watch, two new undergraduate degree programs in music and art have been launched with support from Mellon Foundation. External grant funding for projects in the college has doubled under his watch. Dr. Prakash’s key activities also include strategic planning, recruitment, enrollment management and retention plans; coordinating a range of tasks toward program excellence of the college; 

Dr. Prakash’s research expertise is on genetic improvement research on food crops of importance to developing countries. His lab was among the first to develop transgenic sweetpotato and peanut plants, and conduct pioneering genomic studies on peanut. His current research includes gene editing of crops using CRISPR/Cas9 system.   

Dr. Prakash has also been actively involved in enhancing the societal awareness of food biotechnology issues around the world. Dr. Prakash serves as Editor‐in‐chief of the journal GM Crops &Food. Dr. Prakash is winner of the prestigious 2015 Borlaug CAST Communication Award as according to CAST, he has “arguably done more than anyone else in academia or industry to promote agricultural technologies that can help feed the world’s growing population.” He was also recognized by Huffington Post as among the Top 30 social influencers in biopharma and biotech. He has an active presence in the social media, impacting nearly half million readers per month on Twitter (@agbioworld).   

Dr. Prakash is widely recognized as the leading proponent of science‐based agricultural development, especially in the use of molecular techniques including genetically modified crops. He provides technical, societal and ethical perspectives on the issue through his lectures and writings and on social media. He was instrumental in catalyzing the scientific community in many countries to get involved in public outreach on agbiotech issues. He is a popular speaker and his views and writing were covered in numerous newspapers and magazines. He has delivered nearly 1000 public lectures across 80 countries including venues such as Aspen Ideas Festival, World Food Prize, UN Forum on Sustainable Development, FAO, US Congress, and World Bank. He was invited three times to deliver lectures at the Vatican, and was fortunate to have an audience with Pope Francis and explain him the benefits of Golden Rice.  He has won numerous prestigious awards including the Morrison‐Evans Outstanding Scientist Award. He served as panel manager for the USDA’s biotechnology risk assessment grant program, chaired the minority affairs committee of the American Society for Plant Biology, and served on the USDA Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology with Ag Secretaries Dan Glickman and Ann Veneman.

Arif Hossain is the executive director of the Dhaka-based Farming Future Bangladesh and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University. Earlier, he worked for the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) as a senior specialist in outreach and communication. For more than a decade, Arif’s expertise in communication has included hands-on experience with international development organizations, human rights, civil society and community engagement, media, and advertising. His area of professional specialization is the intersection of strategic and development communication, advocacy, policy, and good governance reform.

Prior to IRRI, Arif worked as a communications coordinator at Plan International where he coordinated communications activities with a holistic approach working with policy makers, service providers, national and international partners, and local NGOs. Prior to that, he worked at Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) as assistant manager of outreach and communications. Arif also worked as a copywriter for A Positive Advertising Ltd., newsroom editor for Banglanews24.com, and as an organizer for the Association for Culture and Education (ACE).

Arif completed his MA and BA in English from the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh. He has a post-graduate diploma in International Relations from the University of Dhaka. He is interested in music and has received a number of national level awards as a vocal artist. He also likes to explore his passion for theater and has performed in several dramas and musical shows.

Topics of expertise: Science communications, food security, climate change, smallholder farm communities, biotechnology crops in Bangladesh (Bt brinjal, LBR potato, Bt cotton, Golden Rice), youth and agriculture, modernization of agriculture, fourth industrial revolution and agriculture, agricultural innovations, etc.

Geographic regions of expertise:  Bangladesh/South-Easth Asia

For over 40 years, Dr. Ronnie Coffman has indefatigably empowered remarkable cadres of people in the pursuit of better lives for people in some of the world’s most populous countries. He has dedicated himself to helping smallholder farmers with scarce resources whose lives are frequently bypassed by agricultural science and innovation.

Dr. Coffman is the vice-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an international consortium of more than 1,000 scientists from hundreds of institutions working together to protect the world's wheat supplies. The global effort was launched in 2005 in partnership with CIMMYT, ICARDA, FAO and the late Norman E. Borlaug. He is currently principal investigator for a wide-range of international projects focused on food security and global development, including: Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat and NextGen Cassava. In 2013, he won the inaugural World Agriculture Prize for his achievements guiding scientific and social change across continents and generations. In 2019 he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his distinguished contributions to food security, including innovative research programs, support for women throughout science, and development of worldwide science communication programs.

Dr. Coffman strongly supports gender initiatives that promote professional development for young women scientists. In 2011, he was honored with the Mentoring Award from the Women in Agronomy, Crops, Soil and Environmental Sciences. In 2013, when he won the inaugural World Agriculture Prize, he donated the $50K award to Advancing Women in Agriculture through Research and Education (AWARE), an initiative at Cornell whose members believe that empowering women as an underserved group holds the greatest potential to make significant impacts in agricultural development.

He was also integral in establishing the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) program in Ghana, a program that educates and trains the next generation of plant breeders for Africa, in Africa. WACCI celebrated its 13th anniversary in 2020.

Previous positions include Associate Dean for Research (1993-2001); Director of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (1993-2001); Chair of the Department of Plant Breeding and Biometry (1987-1993); and Plant Breeder at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Coffman's work has been important to the development of improved rice varieties grown on several million hectares throughout the world.  He has collaborated extensively with institutions in the developing world and has served as a board member for several international institutes.

Dr. Coffman grew up on a farm in Kentucky, and completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Kentucky. His Ph.D. is from Cornell, for which Norman E. Borlaug served on his thesis committee and oversaw his research, and with whom Coffman had a lifelong association.

Ghana is one of the African countries working to improve food security and agricultural sustainability through scientific research and innovation. A number of public institutions in the country are applying cutting edge tools to improve food staples. In this webinar, four young scientists spearheading cutting-edge research on food security crops in Ghana — Dr. John Elebu, head of cowpea and soybean projects, West African Center for Crop Improvement (WACCI); Dr. Agyemang Danquah, head of tomato genetics program, WACCI; Dr. Mavis Owusuaa, molecular biotechnologist, University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR); and Dr. Daniel Ofosu, research scientist, Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute (BNARI), will discuss their research.  The scientists will share why they’re motivated to use innovation to develop high quality, safe and nutritious crops to feed Ghana’s growing population. They will also talk about the challenges they encounter in their research and opportunities going forward for the development of good agricultural systems, improving food security, and promoting agricultural sustainability in the country.  Modesta Abugu, a PhD student in horticultural science and AgBiOFEWS Fellow at North Carolina State University, will be moderating this webinar.