Eleven development scholars and practitioners will address some of the world’s most urgent challenges — from racial and gender inequalities to climate change and resilient food security — in a new seminar series confronting perceptions about sustainable global development.    

The new Perspectives in Global Development Seminar Series invites world-leading experts to share innovative approaches to social, environmental and agricultural development challenges. This semester’s speaker series includes an exciting range of global thought leaders from academia, government and the private sector, including a U.S. Congresswoman, a World Food Prize co-laureate, and a Cornell faculty member named by Reuters as one of the top 10 influential climate scientists in the world.

“This series not only brings together experts to explore the complexity of global development from diverse perspectives, but also invites students and the public to grapple with these same global issues,” said Ed Mabaya, research professor of global development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and one of the seminar series organizers. “This is the highest-caliber of multidisciplinary speakers that can be found anywhere in the world, and it’s meant to challenge people in their thinking about what development means in this century.”

Perspectives in Global Development seminars are held Wednesdays from 12:25 – 1:15 p.m. eastern time during the semester. The series will be presented in a hybrid format from Emerson 135, with some speakers appearing in-person and others via Zoom. Students, faculty and the general public are welcome to attend. All seminars will be available live via Zoom with registration.

This semester’s speakers and their topics are:

• September 8: Devika Agge (Health in Harmony) “Regenerating rainforests by listening to communities"
• September 15: Melanie Stansbury, M.S. ’07 (U.S. House of Representatives) “Leadership, governance and strategies for advancing the policies and actions for equitable development”
• September 22: Mario Herrero (Cornell University: Global Development) “Transforming food systems for global sustainable development”
• September 29: Jemimah Njuki (IFPRI Africa) “Reimagining solutions to gender inequality”
• October 6: Sara Boettiger (Bayer) “Bayer's efforts to reach 100 million smallholder farmers”
• October 13: Jan Low M.S. '85, Ph.D. '94 (International Potato Center) “Can biofortified sweetpotato meaningfully contribute to food system transformation?”
• October 20: Fatema Sumar (Millennium Challenge Corporation) “The Development Diplomat: working across borders, boardrooms, and bureaucracies to end poverty”
• October 27: Prakash Kashwan (University of Connecticut) “Pathways to an anti-racist and regenerative environmentalism in an age of intersecting crises”
• November 3: Jessica Fanzo (Johns Hopkins University) “Global food & agricultural policy and ethics”
• November 10: John Edgar (USAID) “Successes and challenges in sustainable coastal fisheries management in the Philippines”
• November 17: Sudha Narayanan (IFPRI Asia) “Understanding farmer protests in India”

“The Perspectives in Global Development seminar series is an opportunity to generate lively discussions across disciplines and student cohorts and to convene those across Cornell and beyond with interests in development questions and practice,” said Lori Leonard, professor and chair of global development.

According to Mabaya, this semester’s seminars reflect the breadth and depth of disciplines within the Department of Global Development. The series engages undergraduate and graduate students from a range of disciplines in CALS and the SC Johnson College of Business, and also convenes international mid-career professionals from Cornell’s Hubert H. Humphrey Program. 

Seminar organizers include Cornell faculty members Mabaya, Louise Buck, Terry Tucker and Saurabh Mehta. The seminar series is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources & the Environment, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the School of Integrative Plant Science.