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James Edward Giles
Climate Strategy Specialist
James Giles is a specialist in climate strategy with the Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he works in the Climate Action team. He has a background in environmental science and economics.
Over the last six years with the Alliance in Asia, he has conducted research on the evaluation of localized Climate-Smart Agriculture initiatives and their capacity to influence national-level climate policies in the agricultural sector.…
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Jesús David Martínez Salgado
Research Specialist, Central America
Jesús David Martínez is an agronomist with a Master's degree in Agricultural Sciences. With over a decade of experience in the agri-food sector, his expertise lies in proposing and coordinating research projects, analyzing data, conducting assessments of rural socioeconomic vulnerability and risk, addressing climate change issues, greenhouse gas inventories, and modelling crop and livestock systems.
Jesús David has primarily worked in Latin America…
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Cesare M. Scartozzi
Postdoctoral fellow
Cesare is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CGIAR (Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT).
His role involves research and programming activities aimed at promoting a transition towards inclusive and equitable low-emission development pathways. Before joining CGIAR in 2022, he completed my PhD in Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, where he examined the intersections between climate policy, finance, and security.
Cesare's work on climate security has been featured in peer-reviewed…
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Guillermo Peña Chipatecua
Research Associate
Guillermo joined the research area of Multifunctional Landscapes at ABC in April 2021 as part of the team of the RUSTICA project in Colombia. His research focuses on waste valorization solutions to plug circularity into food systems.
From 2019 to 2020 he installed a biogas pilot plant at ABC and conducted a research project on biogas production from fruit and vegetable residues as Research Assistant at ICESI University.
Previously, he has been working as Project…
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Tosin Harold Akingbemisilu
Research Specialist
Tosin Harold Akingbemisilu works as a Research Specialist in the Food Environment and the Consumer Behavior Lever. He has over 10 years’ experience using data to make informed decisions across several multinational organizations and public health interventions including reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health, nutrition, and malaria.
Tosin is passionate about leveraging the power of data, and consistently seeks to drive impactful outcomes and…
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Maria Victoria Diaz Lopez
Senior Research Associate
Maria Victoria is a Research Associate in the Data Science Team from Climate Action program, specializing in the development of landraces and crop wild relatives gap analysis methodologies, spatial analysis and visualization, and crop and climate modeling.
She holds a Bachelor Degree in Statistic from Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, and a Master Degree in Data Science from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain, with experience in Bayesian and…
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Siagbé Golli
Senior Research Associate
Siagbé Golli is a Senior Research Associate, particularly working on Climate Smart Agriculture at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT International.
An Ivorian and formerly at ICRAF, he holds a Master's degree in Biodiversity and Sustainable Management of Ecosystems and another in plants and environment protection.
Over the last 10 years, he has contributed to projects implementation for the dissemination of innovative cocoa farming technologies, agroforestry, sustainable…
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Christina Frankopan
Trustee, Bioversity International UK
Christina is a Senior Consultant to Lazard Financial Advisory, specialising in fintech and blockchain. Christina started her career in the Corporate Finance Department of Lazard in 1995. She then gained start-up experience before working with boutique corporate finance houses, primarily advising on financial services and technology transactions.
Since 2015, Christina has been working closely with decentralised ledger technologists, advising on…
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Sara J. Scherr
Trustee, Bioversity International USA
Dr. Sara J. Scherr, an agricultural and resource economist, is a prominent voice globally in promoting the restoration of degraded lands. She founded the nonprofit EcoAgriculture Partners in 2002 to promote locally-led agricultural landscape transformation for food security, rural livelihoods and ecosystem services.
A leading innovator in agricultural landscape analysis, planning, policy and finance, she has supported landscape partnerships in Africa, Latin…
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Daniel Silverstein
Trustee, Bioversity International USA
Dan Silverstein provides strategic advice on private sector engagement, capital markets activities, and impact investments in agricultural and economic development to U.S. government agencies, donor aid agencies, embassies, ministries, research centers, universities, civil society, and corporations.
He works with an elite group of clients which he counsels on aligning public and private capital that is invested to achieve tangible impact in addressing the…
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Paul Zuckerman
Treasurer, Bioversity International UK/USA
Paul Zuckerman is the Chair and CEO of Zuckerman & Associates LLC. His expertise is in Finance and Economics. He retired from full time investment banking in 1998, having been Managing Director and Founding Director of Caspian Securities, Ltd (1995-98); and before that Executive Director, S G Warburg & Co Ltd, London; Vice Chair, S G Warburg International; Chair S G Warburg Latin America Ltd (1981-95).
Since 1998 he has been on the Board of a…
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Emma Stewart-Smith
Executive Director
Emma is the inaugural Executive Director of the combined charities of Bioversity International UK and Bioversity International USA. Resident in the UK, Emma is a creative and collaborative team player who thrives on setting up projects, and helping to turn the ideas of experienced, creative, and talented individuals into something tangible and deliverable. She bring her strong organizational skills to Bioversity International USA/UK, as well as her ability to meet deadlines…
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Teresa Mastrangelo
Facilitator
Teresa B. Mastrangelo is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. She works with mission-driven individuals and leadership teams in the social and services sectors who want to create a better future by transforming how they perform their work. Teresa applies her business acumen to improve people’s lives through coaching. People should be set up for success by capitalizing on their strengths and bolstering their weaknesses through intentional career…
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Andreea Nowak
Research Team Lead, Climate Action
Andreea Nowak is the Research Team Lead for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (a CGIAR center) and a doctoral fellow at Wageningen University and Research. Her work focuses on measuring and tracking adaptation in agriculture, particularly in Africa, combining evidence synthesis and field research to generate robust insights on what works, for whom, and under what conditions. She also serves as a Lead Author for the Agriculture…
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Kyle Dittmer
Research Analyst
Kyle is a Research Analyst for the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT. He was previously a graduate research assistant at the University of Vermont where he received his MS degree in Natural Resources (2019). His MS thesis focused on the potential for best management practices (i.e., conservation tillage, alternative manure application methods/timing and cover cropping) to mitigate nutrient losses via greenhouse gases from agricultural soils without compromising soil fertility or crop…
