Presented by Ruben G. Echeverría, Director General at International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Dr. Echeverría will discuss research-based solutions to solve global challenges driven by six key factors concurrently impacting humanity: population growth, environmental degradation, digital revolution, urbanization, climate change, and biotech innovations. His lecture will encourage a new generation to implement technical and institutional changes to solve international and environmental challenges in a collective and sustained manner.

Since March 2009, Dr. Echeverría has served as Director General of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). A research center within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), CIAT has a mandate for global research related to sustainable food systems, including crop biodiversity and productivity, management of natural resources, climate change, ecosystem services and policy analysis. CIAT staff includes 250 researchers and 400 professionals working in Asia (based in Hanoi, Vietnam), Sub-Saharan Africa (based in Nairobi, Kenya), and in Latin America and the Caribbean (from its headquarters in Cali, Colombia). Dr. Echeverría previously served as Executive Director of CGIAR’s Science Council based at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome, Italy, where he worked globally with the 15 Centers of the CGIAR on priorities and strategies, impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, and the mobilization of science. He earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Minnesota after studying Agronomy at the University of Uruguay.

This lecture will be webstreamed at: go.illinois.edu/livestream