Gatien Falconnier is a systems agronomist interested in the impact of sustainable agricultural intensification on food security and income, in the smallholder context of sub-Saharan Africa. His work combines on-farm and on-station experimentation, crop and farm modelling, to explore scenarios of change in farmers practices, with current and future climate.
Anurag Ajay is Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist of CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project in India.
Ajay seeks to improve the way data is collected and used in the project. He is improving the system of data processing and sharing data publicly. He generates data-driven evidence-based insights that help take key project management decisions and are used for effective planning of project activities. He is the key resource person for programming digital surveys.
Ajay had been actively engaged in planning, coordinating, and facilitating collection of key performance indicator (KPI) data to measure project progress.
Maxwell Mkondiwa is a CIMMYT Associate Scientist – Spatial Economist based in New Delhi, India. He joined CIMMYT in January 2022.
His research focuses on ex-ante and ex-post spatial economic assessments of the adoption potential and impact of agricultural technologies. The general fields in which he conducts his research include spatial economics, economics of agricultural research, production economics, marketing economics (industrial organization), development economics, applied spatial Bayesian econometrics, and economic applications of mathematical optimization.
He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, an MSc in Applied Economics from University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, an MSc in Research Methods from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and a BSc in Agricultural Economics from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Bunda College Campus).
Md. Fazlul Karim is a machinery development officer with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) Program in Bangladesh. He completed an undergraduate and masters degree at Bangladesh Agricultural University in agricultural engineering and technology, with a major in farm power and machinery.
After that, Karim worked as an agricultural engineer under the Government of Bangladesh Enhancement of Crop Production through Improved On-Farm Water Management Technologies project, working in the Department of Agricultural Extension.
In addition, Karim has experience in conducting training for farmers at the Farmers Field School, organizing field days for machinery (including combine harvesters, reapers, rice transplanters and bed planters), supervising and monitoring project works, and providing technical support to beneficiaries.
Md. Rokonnuzzaman Rokon is a machinery development officer with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in Bangladesh. He graduated from Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University in 2014 with a degree in agricultural engineering, before completing a masters in irrigation and water management at Bangladesh Agricultural University.
After finishing his masters, Rokon joined Solargao Ltd as an assistant engineer to a solar irrigation project, before becoming a lecturer at the Government Shahid Akbar Ali Science and Technology College. He joined CIMMYT in 2022.
Mustafa Kamal is a GIS and remote sensing analyst in CIMMYT, leading the GIS, remote sensing and data team in Bangladesh as part of the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program’s Innovation Sciences in Agroecosystems and Food Systems theme across Asia.
Kamal’s core expertise is in earth observation and geospatial data science, scientific and cloud computing, webGIS, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), advance landcover-landuse classification, and tool development. He contributes to research and innovation of irrigation and agro-meteorological advisory, crop identification and yield prediction, disaster and crop monitoring, landscape diversity, and climate analytics. He has published many peer-reviewed papers, reports, and training manuals, and provided teaching/training.
Kamal’s interdisciplinary background in urban and rural planning and disaster management helps him to integrate and lead an interdisciplinary team to provide solutions for sustainable agrifood systems.
Kindie Tesfaye is a Senior Scientist based in Ethiopia. He has more than 15 years of experience in executing and managing climate, crop modeling and GIS related projects for agricultural research and development in developing countries.
During his time at CIMMYT, he has developed a system of data acquisition and quality control for climate, crop modeling and geospatial analysis. He has applied systems analysis, cropping systems modeling and geospatial analysis tools for yield gap analysis, targeting of climate smart technologies and climate change studies across different scales. In collaboration with partners, he has also developed a digital agro-climate advisory system that provides decision support to smallholder farmers.
Diego Pequeno is a wheat crop modeler based within the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program. He also works on a number of projects in collaboration with CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program and a number of external organizations.
His work focuses mainly on the simulation of trait impact scenarios to guide breeding towards the most effective traits and trait combinations for global wheat production. He also works to determine the importance of a single trait or the best combination of traits under different climate change scenarios for different cropping systems in key wheat growing regions. He uses high-performance computer clusters to run gridded crop model simulations for current and future climate scenarios on a global scale.
Jordan Chamberlin is a CIMMYT Spatial Economist based in Kenya. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University and an MA in Geography from Arizona State University.
He conducts applied research on smallholder farm households, rural development and policies designed to promote welfare and productivity improvements.
Kai Sonder is currently the Geographic Information System (GIS) Laboratory Manager. The unit provides spatial data and analysis, targeting and foresight work and agro meteorology to the organization. It also provides training on GIS to all of CIMMYT’s scientists and projects, as well as partners applied to development-oriented agricultural research on maize, wheat and conservation agriculture in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.