Blog: Malawi 2017 Hunger Index

9th Class Leland Fellow, Rachel Gilbert, wrote this blog post discussing the Global Hunger Index (GHI) and the role it plays in tracking hunger at not only a global level, but also at a regional and national level. The blog post … Read more

Daniel Robinson

Dan graduated from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy in 2017 with an MALD in Development Economics and an MS in Food Policy & Applied Nutrition. His graduate capstone project analyzed the incentives that affect the ability and willingness of … Read more

Policy Brief: Managing Salt Affected Soils in Tanzania

This Policy Brief outlines the lessons learned from research on ways to manage salt-affected soils to restore their productivity. “Studies done with funding from the Innovative Agricultural Research Initiative (iAGRI)—a USAID Feed the Future Project— from 2013-2016 have shown that integrated salt-affected … Read more

Treatments Rehabilitate Saline/Sodic Soils to Produce High Rice Yields

Michelle DeFreese wrote this blog post for the FAO’s International Year of Soils series to highlight iAGRI-funded research showing some promising interventions for reducing soil salinity due to irrigation in northeastern Tanzania. http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/blog/treatmentsrehabilitatesalinesodicsoilstoproducehighriceyields/en/

Challenges of M&E for Capacity Building Projects

8th class Leland Fellow, Michelle DeFreese wrote this blog post profile of Dr. Flavianus Magayane’s role in evaluating iAGRI’s impact on its student participants and his thoughts on the challenges of capturing the impact of investments in human capacity. iAGRI … Read more

The Case for Strengthening Developing Nation Universities

Samantha Alvis developed The Case for Strengthening Developing Nation Universities. This piece was designed to support advocacy efforts on the Hill for increasing investments in higher education development, in particular those that involve partnerships between US universities and those in … Read more

Michelle DeFreese

Michelle received her BSc degree in Anthropology at Rutgers University and studied abroad at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She completed an MA in International Affairs at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), University of Geneva in Switzerland. During her postgraduate … Read more

Policy Placement: Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU); Washington, DC At APLU, Michelle was based in the International Programs unit to develop evidence-based, data-driven, and policy-relevant research on the impact of USG expenditures on higher education in developing countries. … Read more

Mowdou Naky

7th Class, 2013-2015 Policy Placement: CRS, Baltimore, MD Mowdou served as a Policy Analyst for Food Security and Agriculture at CRS headquarters in Baltimore. He work in the Agriculture and Livelihood unit within the Program Impact and Quality Assurance department. Mowdou … Read more

Samantha Alvis

7th Class, 2013-2015 Policy Placement: Association of Public and Land-grant Universities International Programs Office, Washington, DC As an International Development and Programs Specialist at APLU, Samantha worked on the Knowledge Center for Advancing Development Through Higher Education, which focuses on … Read more

Megann Mielke

7th Class, 2013-2015 Policy Placement: Winrock International, Arlington, VA For her Policy Year Megann continued to support SolutionMUS​, Winrock International’s global initiative to scale-up the adoption of Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS). As a technical advisor, she worked on the development of a standard system for planning, monitoring … Read more