Tropical Agriculture Program

Our Staff

Dr. Pedro Sanchez
Director

Pedro Sanchez is the Director of the Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program, Senior Research Scholar and Director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.  He also directs AfSIS, the African Soils Information Service developing the digital soils map of the world.  Sanchez is Professor Emeritus of Soil Science and Forestry at North Carolina State University and served as Director General of ICRAF - the World Agroforestry Center from 1991 -2001.  Sanchez received his BS, MS and PhD degrees in soil science from Cornell University.  His professional career has been dedicated to help eliminate world hunger and absolute rural poverty while protecting and enhancing the tropical environment.  He is the author of “Properties and Management of Soils of the Tropics” (rated among the top 10 best-selling books in soil science world­wide), co-author of “Halving Hunger: It can be done” and of over 250 scientific publications.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Agronomy, the Soil Science Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He serves on the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Academy of Sciences.  Sanchez is the 2002 World Food Prize laureate and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow.

 

Dr. Cheryl Palm
Sr. Research Scientist

Cheryl Palm is a Senior Research Scientist in the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program of the Earth Institute at Columbia University where she is also the Science Director of the Millennium Villages Project.  A tropical ecologist focusing on land use change, Dr. Palm received her Ph.D. in soil science from North Carolina State University after completing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in zoology at the University of California, Davis.  She served as Principal Research Scientist of the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Program in Nairobi, Kenya from 1991-2001.  She has served on the faculties of North Carolina State University, Colorado State University and spent a year as visiting scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.  She was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomists in 2005 and is currently the chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI).  Dr. Palm’s research focuses on land use change, degradation and rehabilitation, and ecosystem services in tropical landscapes.  She led a major effort quantifying carbon stocks, losses and net greenhouse gas emissions following slash and burn and alternative land use systems in the humid tropics in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, Indonesia and the Congo Basin.  She has spent much of the past 15 years investigating nutrient dynamics in farming systems of Africa, including options for land rehabilitation.  Most recent work includes the Millennium Villages Project, an integrated approach to achieving the Millennium Development Goals in rural Sub-Saharan Africa.  The approach combines evidence based interventions and community based participation.  The team is currently working with the Millennium Villages sites developing carbon offset projects for carbon sequestration in degraded landscapes that will provide additional ecosystem services and benefit local communities.

 

Philip Fitzpatrick
Systems/Network Analyst/Programmer

Philip Fitzpatrick is the Systems and Network Analyst/Programmer at Lamont Doherty.  He joined the Tropical Agriculture program on August 29, 2005.  He received his BA in Psychology and Computer Science from Iona College, New Rochelle, NY.

 

  

Jonathan Hickman
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

 Jonathan Hickman is a new Earth Institute Fellow at Columbia University.  Hickman received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  His proposed research at the Earth Institute  seeks to use complimentary field and model studies to study the potential for improved agricultural management to improve the resiliency of smallholder agricultural systems to climate change in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and understand how those management practices may, in turn, affect emissions of greenhouse gases from these agroecosystems.  Prior to arriving at the Earth Institute, Hickman was a Diversity Research Consultant for FORTUNE magazine on corporate social responsibility issues, worked as a science journalist for an Ohio National Public Radio station as a AAAS fellow, served as a senior researcher for the Council on Economic Priorities, and spent three months as a Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies.

 

Christine Keenan
Department Administrative Assistant

 

 

Raffaela Kozar
Community Development Specialist

Raffaela Kozar is Community Development Specialist at the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program of the Earth Institute. Raffaela is currently based at the Earth Institute’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Centre in Bamako, Mali, from where she serves as the global Community Development Coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project. In the Millennium Villages she focuses on local capacity development and governance for the MDGs, and how rural African communities participate in the MV project. Previously, Raffaela applied participatory approaches in her work on community-based natural resource management, and she has conducted participatory research on land use and poverty and local biodiversity knowledge. She served the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Uganda as an advisor on MDG 7 Ensuring Environmental Sustainability during the 2004 national Poverty Eradication Action Plan revision. Her primary research interests are in the multidimensional development challenges that lie at the intersection of poverty, food and nutrition security, and ecosystem services provision; and linking research with advancing the social and political processes needed to identify sustainable development solutions through the use of participatory learning and action tools. Raffaela holds an MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. in Environmental Analysis and Policy and International Relations from Boston University.

 

Andrew Miller
Finance Manager

Andrew Miller is the Manager of Finance and Administration for the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program (TropAg) of The Earth Institute at Columbia University.  In this role Andrew manages the grant and gift budgets of TropAg, of the other Millennium Villages Project (MVP) sectors, including energy, infrastructure, education, environment, and healthcare, and the Millennium Development Goal Centers.  Andrew also manages the Human Resources of TropAg, which includes the tasks of writing job descriptions and terms of responsibility, recruiting new staff, orientation, and performance evaluations.  Andrew works closely with Columbia's legal counsel and EI’s Director of Finance to develop contracts and agreements with other institutions.  He also fills a liaison role with the partner organizations on the MVP, including United Nations Development Program and Millennium Promise.

 

Stephen Ngigi
Research Associate/Water Management

Stephen N. Ngigi is a research associate at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.  He is a water resources management specialist and water coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project (MVP).  He has a Ph.D. in integrated water resources management (IWRM) from UNESCO-IHE (Institute for Water Education), Delft, the Netherlands (2006), an M.Sc. in soil and water engineering from University of Nairobi, Kenya (1995), a postgraduate diploma in groundwater resources management from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel (1993), and a B.Sc. in agricultural engineering from the University of Nairobi, Kenya (1991).  He previously worked with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Nile Project as a regional agricultural water use survey consultant based in Entebbe, Uganda.  He has also taught and researched at the University of Nairobi for more than 10 years.  Ngigi has researched and published extensively on integrated agricultural water management, especially rainwater harvesting  and management and low-head drip irrigation technology.  He has been involved in many community development activities in Eastern Africa, mainly focusing on the promotion of water as an entry point to sustainable rural development.  He has been the recipient of research and project grants from USAID and the European Commission.  He is currently spearheading a study funded by the Rockefeller Foundation on the assessment of water resources management for smallholder farming systems' adaptation to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Mary Nyasimi
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Mary Nyasimi is a PostDoctoral Research Fellow with the Earth Institute at Columbia University.  Nyasimi received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and Sustainable Agriculture from Iowa State University in 2007.  Prior to joining the Earth Institute, Nyasimi worked with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) based in western Kenya where she was involved in understanding socio-cultural beliefs and practices that affect adoption of agroforestry technologies.  Nyasimi’s research interests include; Eco-cultural dimension of African rural livelihoods systems; Food security; Participatory research and methodology development; Participatory monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment and Qualitative research.  As a fellow with the Earth Institute, Dr. Nyasimi’s research will focus on exploring socio-cultural and historical transformations that are occurring among local communities in Sub-Saharan Africa as a result of implementation of Millennium Villages Project.

 

Generose Nziguheba
Associate Research Scientist

Generose Nziguheba is Associate Research Scientist at the Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program at the Earth Institute.  A native of Burundi, she obtained the “Ingénieur” degree in Agronomic Sciences at the University of Burundi and her PhD in Applied Biological Sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 2001.  Her research career has focused on understanding nutrients supply and cycling, and crop production under small-scale farming systems in sub-Sahara Africa.  Currently Dr. Nziguheba coordinates the agriculture sector in the Millennium Villages Project.  She has received the Belgium State Secretary for Development and Cooperation Award, and is a member of the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF) Africa Network.

 

Mary Pasquince
Executive Assistant to Dr. Pedro Sanchez 

Bio coming soon.

 

Eva Quintana
Socioeconomic Research Assistant

Eva Quintana is part of the MVP data team since February 2008. The team is responsible for supporting the implementation of household surveys in the villages, processing and analyzing data, and producing indicators to assess both progress toward the MDGs and the overall impact of the project. Eva has an MIA from SIPA, with a concentration in Economic and Political Development, and an MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences. Her research interest is on impact evaluation of poverty-reduction programs, with a focus on gender and education.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

    Alex Radunsky                               
                                                Staff Associate

                                              Mr. Alex Radunsky joined the Earth Institute in 2008 as a Staff Associate of Socioeconomic Research.  Mr. Radunsky has over 5 years of experience in Epidemiology, data analysis, survey methodology, and teaching.  Mr. Radunsky is a graduate of Yeshiva University of New York, NY (Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, 2004) and a graduate of the Drexel University (Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology, 2008).  He supports the implementation of household surveys in the MVP sites, trains database managers in the MVP sites, processes and analyzing data, and producing indicators to assess both progress toward the MDGs and the overall impact of the project. 

 

 

Roseline Remans
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Roseline Remans is a postdoctoral research fellow of the Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program based at the Lamont Campus of the Earth Institute.  A Native from Belgium, she graduated in 2001 in Bioscience Engineering, with specialization in biotechnology, at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven). During her Master, she started as a lab-based researcher focusing on molecular cell-cell interactions in the domain of human pathology.  Study and research stays abroad shifted her interest from pure fundamental research to a combination of basic and applied science, confronting interactions between science, real life problems and cultural settings.  Roseline obtained her PhD in October 2007at the K.U.Leuven where after she joined the Tropical Agriculture Program at the Earth Institute.  Attracted and inspired by the cross-disciplinary approach of the Earth Institute, Roseline’s current research focuses on tradeoffs and synergies between agriculture and nutrition in the Millennium Villages.  In addition to her research, Roseline assists Prof. Pedro Sanchez in writing the second edition of his book on Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics.

 

Alison Rose
Research Manager

Alison Rose is Manager of Research Programs for the Tropical Agriculture Program/Millennium Villages Project.  Alison has a Masters in Public Affairs with a focus in development from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.  Most recently, she worked with the health team of the Millennium Villages Project.  Prior to that, she worked at the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, where she contributed to writing and research on a number of publications and materials, including a report by the UN Secretary-General on tsunami recovery, a study on aid equity in tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka, and an evaluation of NGO activities in tsunami recovery.  She also worked at the Open Society Institute and NYU School of Law, where she was editor of a journal on legal, economic, and political issues in post-communist Eastern Europe.

 

Sean Smukler
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Sean Smukler studied ecology at the University of California, Davis, where he obtained his Ph.D. this year. His dissertation was titled “Managing Organic Farmscapes for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functions.” Smukler has worked in agriculture, ecological restoration, forestry and waste and sanitation sustainability. He has experience working in developing nations with farmers and an international development organization in the mountains of Nepal, creating strategies to conserve forest ecosystems by increasing on farm fodder production through agroforestry and is a certified permaculture designer.  Smukler has also received multiple awards including the Achievement Rewards for College Students Foundation Scholarship. He also holds a M.S. in Forest soils from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Environmental Biology and Management from UC Davis. He is working with Cheryl Palm of the Tropical Agriculture Program and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI).  He is also interested in conducting research in the Millennium Villages.

 

Anthony Kalule Tamusuza
Research Assistant

Anthony Kalule Tamusuza is a Research Assistant for the Earth Institute at Columbia University.  Before joining Columbia he worked at a small firm in Ann Arbor, MI as a SAS programmer.  Prior to that he was at the University of Michigan as a graduate student.  Anthony earned a Masters degree in Survey Methodology, with a bias in Statistics.  Further, Anthony worked as a Statistician at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.  He has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics & Statistics which was earned at Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda.

 

Markus Walsh
Visiting Sr. Research Scientist

Bio coming soon.

 

Leigh Winowiecki
Postdoc Research Fellow

Leigh Winowiecki studies the link between soil formation and biogeochemical cycling of plant nutrients in agroforestry systems in tropical landscapes. She received her Ph.D. in Soil Science jointly from the University of Idaho and CATIE (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) in Turrialba, Costa Rica.  Leigh's doctoral research also examined the role of local ecological (soil) knowledge of indigenous farmers in the development of innovative soil management techniques and technology transfer.  At the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, Leigh will contribute to the African Soil Information Service (AfSIS) project, which will digitally map and predict imperative soil properties of 18.1 million sq. km of sub-Saharan Africa.  She is working with Pedro Sanchez and Cheryl Palm in the Tropical Agriculture Program at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.