Georgina Catacora-Vargas

VIsiting Professor, Ithaca College, and Professor

Georgina is a professor, researcher and policy advisor in agroecology, biodiversity, sustainable food systems and peasants’ rights. Through participatory action research, she collaborates with peasant organizations and Indigenous Peoples in these areas. Her transdisciplinary, gender-focused academic work emphasizes on the socio-ecological processes surrounding food, agriculture and the biosafety of modern biotechnology. She has served as an advisor to the Bolivian National Competent Environment Authority for several years, as well as a negotiator in various multilateral environmental agreements under the United Nations, the Andean Community, and MERCOSUR. This has led to her being involved in national and international policy making and implementation in her fields of expertise, including drafting the first National Agroecology Strategy of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. She is currently president of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA) and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). She is also part of the advisory team of the Agroecology Fund. 

Anjana Ramkumar

PhD CANDIDATE, Development Sociology, Cornell University

Anjana is broadly interested in the nexus between agroecology and postcolonial development. Her work explores the eco-social dimensions of agriculture and seeks to understand how agroecological practices contest dominant narratives of development by embracing alternative economies and ecologies of cultivation. Anjana’s dissertation project focuses on the cultivation of heirloom rice varieties in Tamilnadu, India within an agricultural landscape that has been, and continues to be, dominated by high-yielding varieties of the Green Revolution. Her research uses heirloom rice as a lens through which to engage with questions of food sovereignty, decolonisation, and repeasantization. Prior to joining Cornell, Anjana served as an officer in the Climate Change Division of Singapore’s Foreign Service. She subsequently obtained a master’s degree in Geography from the National University of Singapore in 2019.

Jarvis Fisher

PhD CANDIDATE, Development Sociology, Cornell University

Jarvis is interested in agroecology, the food sovereignty movement, and the history of economic and social thought. Through his work, he hopes to better understand the manner by which large-scale sociopolitical and economic conditions and altruistic development interventions contribute to inter-and intra-household differentiation within rural communities.  

As a PhD student in Development Sociology, Jarvis is currently researching the political economy of rice and groundnut production in Senegal. His work explores the impact that Senegalese state agricultural policy has had on agrarian social relations and rural laborers’ perspectives on the comparative value of industrial and agroecological farming methods. Prior to his time at Cornell, Jarvis received his MSc in Development Studies from SOAS in 2015. In the years following his master’s degree, Jarvis managed and supervised anti-trafficking programs in West Africa and developed grant proposals to support international gender equality advocacy projects. 

Mira Qi

PhD Student, Development Sociology, Cornell University

Mira’s work explores the interplay of state, gender, and agriculture production in shaping agrarian life. Through focusing on agroecology initiatives led by rural women in southwest China, she seeks to better understand the ways in which small farmers cope with or resist pressures that erode smallholder livelihoods, and how their differing livelihood approaches reconfigure the social and ecological relations of production along the lines of class, gender, and generation. Her dissertation project aims to provide key insights into rural women’s role in reshaping China’s agrarian landscapes and rural society, highlighting their struggles and agency. Prior to joining Cornell, Mira received her master’s degree from the University of California, Davis, where she conducted research on the alternative food movement in China. 

Mai Ichihara

PhD Student, Development Studies, Cornell University

Originally from Monument, Colorado, Mai is a PhD student in Development Studies researching how farmers, businesses, and institutional expertise are shaping regenerative agriculture in international supply chains. Her work examines a range of approaches to measuring, verifying, and incentivizing soil health and agrobiodiversity, and explores how these activities—and the inequalities they may (re)produce—are unfolding in parts of the U.S. and Latin America. She hopes to understand the governance changes needed for regenerative agriculture to improve socioecological conditions at local and global scales. Mai earned a joint M.E.M. in water resource management and M.A. in global affairs from Yale University, and a B.A. in international relations from The George Washington University.

Amanda Vilchez

PhD student, Communications, Cornell university

Originally from Peru, Amanda Vilchez is a transdisciplinary scholar with a background in biology and social science. Over the years, she has examined participatory research processes and outcomes focused on human-wildlife relationships, working hand-in-hand with rural and urban communities across Peru. She is currently studying the interaction between Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western science in collaborative spaces to co-create an understanding of traditional agricultural practices. For her dissertation, she is working with Peruvian farmers from the Inca Sacred Valley and scientists on the participatory analysis of vampire bat guano use for maize seed treatment.

Lara Roeven

PHD student, development studies, cornell university

Lara’s research interests include agrobiodiversity conservation, farmers' seed systems, access and benefit sharing, biocultural diversity and rights, and the political economy and history of agricultural science and technology. Her dissertation project examines how state-led and development projects focused on the in situ conservation and repatriation of potatoes in Peru reshape seed exchange among farmers and between farmers and genebanks, and to what effect. She is interested in how changes in seed exchange affect gender, class, and generational relations in agrarian contexts. Her work is situated at the intersection of critical development studies, feminist political ecology, and science and technology studies. Prior to coming to Cornell, Lara worked as a research assistant at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), where she studied gender and social relations in agricultural development. She obtained a BSc in Politics, Psychology, Law, and Economics (PPLE) at the University of Amsterdam and an MS in Development Studies at Cornell University.