Andreas Graner, Board member
Since 2007, Prof Andreas Graner has been Acting Director of the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Germany. He also heads IPK’s Genebank Department and is a professor of Plant Genetic Resources, University of Halle (Germany), serving in both capacities since 1999, and he is a member of the German Academy of Natural Sciences, Leopoldina.

Prior to joining IPK, Prof Graner was a Research Scientist at the Institute for Resistance Genetics, Gruenbach (1990–1997), after which he came to IPK as a Senior Scientist and coordinator of the Plant Genome Resource Centre, IPK Gatersleben (1997–1999).

Among others, Prof Graner serves on the editorial boards of Molecular Breeding and Theoretical and Applied Genetics; the Steering Board of the German Society of Plant Breeding (GPZ); the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max-Planck-Institute for Breeding Research (MPIZ), Cologne; the Scientific Advisory Board of the Julius Kueh Institute and the Steering Committee of the International Barley Sequencing Consortium.

His areas of expertise include cereal genetics, genomics, molecular breeding and plant genetic resources. He is particularly interested in the development of genome-based strategies for better utilisation of plant genetic resources.

«back to top»

Andrew Bennett, Board member 
Dr Andrew Bennett is the President of the Tropical Agricultural Association (UK) . Dr Bennett chairs the Boards of Trustees of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net). He is a Non-Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, the Doyle Foundation (UK), CABI International (formerly known as the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau) and the International Baccalaureate Organisation, UK.

He was formerly Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation and Director of Rural Livelihoods and Environment at the Department for International Development (DFID, UK) where he was responsible for professional advice on policy and programmes on livelihoods, natural resources, environment, sustainable development and research. Dr Bennett has more than 45 years of experience in international development and disaster management, having worked in development programmes in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Caribbean. He also has extensive experience of international negotiations on natural resources, research, environment and development.

More specifically, Dr Bennett’s areas of expertise include agronomy, tropical agriculture, forestry, research, environmental management, international development, negotiation and governance.

«back to top»

Calvin Qualset, Board Chair
Prof Calvin Qualset is Professor Emeritus at the University of California–Davis, USA where has served since 1967 as Professor, Department Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of several programmes, including the Genetic Resources Conservation Program.

Recent activities include Principal Investigator of a 13-lab wheat genomics project sponsored by the US National Science Foundation Plant Genome (1999–2004); Co-Director, McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Project (1995–2002) in USA and Mexico; co-PI of NSF-sponsored project on wheat landrace diversity in Turkey, and Coordinator, International Triticeae Mapping Initiative (1989–2000); and was Vice-Chair of the IRRI Board of Trustees (1999–2004).

He is past President of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America. He has conducted reviews for several CGIAR centers and various agencies in Africa, Asia, America, and Europe. Prof Qualset has presented invited seminars and lectures in several countries  and co-organised international meetings.

Prof Qualset’s areas of specialisation include plant genetics and breeding research, variety development, and genetic resources research on traits, distributions, and landraces of cereal crops.

«back to top»

Claudio Gonzalez-Vega, Board member
Originally from Costa Rica, Gonzalez-Vega has been Professor of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics and Professor of Economics at The Ohio State University (OSU) since 1982. He is currently Director of the Rural Finance Programme, a center of excellence in finance and development recognised with the Distinguished Policy Contribution Award of the American Agricultural Economics Association.

Gonzalez-Vega holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a PhD from Stanford University. Prior to OSU, he was Dean of Economic Sciences at the University of Costa Rica (1978–1982) and founder of Academia de Centroamérica. Gonzalez-Vega has taught at several universities and training centers and has consulted for many international agencies and governments in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He served on USAID’s Advisory Committee on Micro-enterprise Development (1989–1991) and chaired the Technical Committee of the Cooperative Research Support Program on Broadening Access and Strengthening Input Market Systems (BASIS). He has been recognised by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture with the 60th Anniversary Award for Achievements that Enriched Agriculture (2002), by The Ohio State University (USA) with the James Siddens Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Advising (2007), and by the University of Costa Rica, as “Maestro de Generaciones” (2009). He has published extensively on financial policies, rural financial markets, microfinance, poverty, economic development and international trade policies.

«back to top»

Esther Murugi Kahangi, Board member
Esther Murugi Kahangi is a Professor at the Department of Horticulture, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Kenya, where she has been since 1982. She is also the Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Research, Production and Extension (JKUAT), and a member of the Board of Directors, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).
.
She has previously served as the Coordinator East African Regional Programme and Research Network for Biotechnology, Biosafety and Biotechnology Policy Development (BIO-EARN) and at JKUAT as the Director, Institute for Biotechnology Research; Dean, Faculty of Agriculture; and Head, Department of Horticulture—a department she initiated. In 2002, she was warded the UNESCO Chair in Biotechnology for her outstanding work.

Prior to coming to JKUAT, Prof Kahangi was a Research Officer at the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture’s National Horticulture Research Station, before rising to Head of Vegetable Seed Production Section, in charge of research in vegetable seed production nationwide.

Prof Kahangi has also consulted for various government, non-government and international funding agencies on impact assessment—including environmental impact assessments—project appraisals, and feasibility studies.

Her areas of expertise are plant physiology, tissue culture, genetic characterisation of crop plants and technology dissemination to end users.

«back to top»

 Harold Roy-Macauley, Board member

Dr Harold Roy-Macauley is the Director of Programmes for le Conseil Ouest et Centre africain pour la recherche et le développement agricoles (CORAF/WECARD) in Dakar, Senegal, since June 2009. Before CORAF/WECARD, Harold worked for the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), initially undertaking the role as Regional Coordinator, West and Central Africa, in April 2006, after which he relocated to Guinea in January 2009 to take up the position of ICRAF Representative in the Upper Guinea Node for West Africa, overseeing research and development activities, notably in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.

Before joining ICRAF, he lectured plant physiology at the University of Sierra Leone. He was seconded in 1995 to the ‘Centre d’Etude Régional pour l’Amélioration de l’Adaptation à la Sécheresse (CERAAS)’, in Senegal, a Research and Training base-centre of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development, where he was responsible for developing and coordinating scientific activities in biochemistry and molecular physiology. He was appointed Scientific Director and Assistant Managing Director of CERAAS in 1996, and Managing Director, in 1997. He occupied this position till 2004. Between 2004 and 2006, he served as consultant for various agencies, regional and international fora on biosafety and biotechnology. He has been a member of the Steering Committee of the NEPAD/African Biosciences Initiative - Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa (BeCA); the Interim Implementing Committee of the FARA-led Initiative on Building African Scientific and Institutional Capacity (BASIC) in Agriculture; the International Foundation for Science (IFS) Crop Science Advisory Committee (Project evaluation and resource provision). His area of expertise mainly focuses on plant biodiversity improvement and agricultural development especially in West Africa.

«back to top»

 Jeffrey B McElroy, Board member

Dr Jeffrey B McElroy is the Vice-President—BioEnergy Seeds for Mendel Biotechnology, Inc, in Hayward, California, USA, where he leads the strategic planning and project implementation for the BioEnergy Seeds programme. This includes establishing breeding programmes and seed production logistics for species to be used for cellulosic biofuel production, and the development of a competitive seed business model for this future industry.

Before joining Mendel, Dr. McElroy was Vice-President, Research at Harris Moran Seed Company (USA), where he managed plant breeding programme- and research for many vegetables. Dr McElroy was the Head, Vegetable Breeding at L Dæhnfeldt A/S, Denmark (1994–1997), before rising to Divisional Manager Vegetable Seeds (1997–1998). Between 1986 and 1994, he was a Plant Breeder at Petoseed Co Inc (USA). As a postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Nebraska, Dr McElroy conducted basic collaborative research on genetic resistance to common bacterial blight and rust of dry beans which included fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Prior to that, he was also a Visiting Research Associate, Bean Programme, at CIAT, Cali, Colombia.

Dr McElroy has travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and South America.

His areas of expertise include economic botany, plant breeding and research management.

«back to top»