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Tag: systems research

Lennart Woltering

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Lennart Woltering is helping colleagues achieve more and lasting impact with their work. By finding practical applications for complex theories on scaling, he has been able to support project teams in formulating scaling ambitions, help provide clarity on what an “enabling environment” for an innovation means, and create a realistic picture of what a project can and cannot address and where strategic collaboration is required to exert influence.

Prior to joining CIMMYT, Woltering worked for ICRISAT in Niger (2005-2010) on local adaptation of innovations. From 2010-2016 he worked for a management consulting firm designing, implementing and backstopping projects for international donors.

Jelle Van Loon

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Jelle Van Loon is an agricultural engineer with a PhD in biosystems modelling, and over a decade of experience in agricultural research for development in Latin America. He currently serves as Associate Director for Latin America of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood System Program, leading research initiatives aimed at building pathways towards resilient food systems and long-term rural development. Leading the innovations for development team, he coordinates a transdisciplinary team, including aspects like farmers market linkages and responsible sourcing, capacity development, and community-based outreach and explores the multiple interfaces between adaption, adoption and scaling from a socio-technical viewpoint in research for agricultural development.

In addition, Jelle has ample expertise in scale-appropriate mechanization from smallholder farm solutions to precision agriculture applications, has actively progressed to work in innovation systems thinking, and in addition he serves CIMMYT as representative for Latin America in which he focusses this line of work to establish impactful partnerships and innovative business models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wei Xiong

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Wei Xiong is an interdisciplinary researcher focusing on the interactions between agricultural production and environment, with specific experiences in climate change and agriculture, development of agricultural system modeling tools, evaluation of climate-smart agriculture, and Genotype by Environment Interaction analysis.

Xiong is good at using cutting-edge technologies (such as cloud computing, machine learning, big data, HPC, and bioinformatics) in G×E×M interaction analysis, with a track record of improving short- and long-term agricultural forecast models at the local, national, and global scales. He is also interested in smart agriculture, agricultural AI, and innovative predictive approaches from genomics to phenomics.

Tek Sapkota

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Tek Sapkota currently leads the Climate Change Science Group within CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program and is based in CIMMYT headquarters in Mexico. He carries out research in the area of agricultural systems, soil science and environmental sciences. He is particularly involved in studying agro-ecosystems management consequences on nutrient dynamics and their effect on food security, climate change adaptation and mitigation. He is a member of the Climate Investment Committee in OneCGIAR.

Sapkota has served in IPCC as Lead author as well as Review editor. He is an associate Editor of Nature Scientific Report and Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems journals. He is an agricultural expert in the India GHG platform.

Santiago Lopez-Ridaura

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Santiago Lopez-Ridaura focuses on the quantitative analysis of agricultural systems at the field, farm, landscape and regional level. By developing and applying a suit of quantitative systems analysis approaches, methods and tools, he builds a detailed understanding of the characteristics, dynamics and diversity of farming systems in a given region. Then, through multi-criteria assessments of different cropping and farming systems, he helps target interventions to specific types of farms within certain agro-ecologies.

Lopez-Ridaura works closely with farmers, farmer organizations, national and international non-governmental organizations, and agricultural research and development institutions to help them answer what technological and policy interventions are most appropriate for a given community. This enables organizations to comprehensively understand the main challenges and opportunities of specific technologies, and improve their adoption and adaptation to reach impact at scale.

Christian Thierfelder

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Christian Thierfelder is a Principal Cropping Systems Agronomist working with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification program.

Since 2009, Thierfelder has led CIMMYT’s conservation agriculture systems research in Southern Africa with the aim to adapt conservation agriculture systems to the needs and environments of smallholder farmers. He currently focuses on fine-tuning conservation agriculture systems to different agro-ecologies and researching farmers’ adoption of new technologies, green manure cover crops and grain legumes integration into maize-based farming systems, climate-smart agriculture, GxExM and agro-ecological management of the fall armyworm.

His research mainly covers Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and to a lesser extent Namibia. Thierfelder works with a wide range of national and international partners from research and extension in all target countries. Capacity building is a central part of his work, which includes farmers, extension officers and national researchers but also university students from all degree levels.

Timothy Krupnik

Timothy J. Krupnik

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Timothy Krupnik has worked in agricultural research for development in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean. At CIMMYT, he leads a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural research team that comprises the Sustainable Agrifood Systems program’s Innovation Sciences in Agroecosystems and Food Systems theme across Asia.

This team spans disciplines and brings together technical skills ranging from systems agronomy, remote sensing, socioeconomics, climatology, agricultural engineering, and modeling and data science. The team’s research generates real-world impact by addressing key knowledge gaps, developing tools, and facilitating partnerships that increase productivity, sustainability and resilience in the context of the region’s biophysical, economic, and sociocultural diversity.

Krupnik has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers, policy briefs, chapters and books, and has led the development of numerous extension modules, decision support tools, and early warning systems.