AgMIP10 Keynote Speakers

Dr. Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi is a globally recognized researcher, boundary spanner, and science advocate, working on complex water, energy, food, and environmental systems at the interface of science, policy, and society. He is an expert in mathematical and crop-climate modeling of complex human-nature systems at the interface of climate change, agriculture, biodiversity and health to inform policy and practice. He has a commendable track record of scientific leadership, capacity building, and partnership development crucial for realizing the benefits of research, development, and innovation. He aims to spearhead research and development initiatives that influence policy, promote equality, and drive transformation in Africa and globally.

He is a Professor of Climate Change, Food Systems and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Director of the Institute for Natural Resources (NPC) in South Africa. In addition, he is also the Lead – Water, Energy, Food and Environment (WEFE) Nexus at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). Previously, he was the Research Group Leader for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems at the International Water Management Institute, and Co-Director and founder of the Centre for Transformative Agricultural and Food Systems of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he remains an Honorary Professor. He holds strategic roles in various advisory committees and panels and is an editor of several high-impact journals.

Dr. Sonali Shukla McDermid is a climate scientist, Associate Professor and Chair of the NYU Dept. of Environmental Studies. Her research investigates both climate change impacts on agriculture and food security, and the impacts of land management on the environment. She has served on the leadership team for the Agricultural Intercomparison Project Regional Integrated Assessments, charged with evaluating regional climate change impacts, on agriculture and food security, and options for adaptation. She is also a research affiliate at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), where she contributes to land and Earth system model development by incorporating and improving land management processes. McDermid is a Andrew Carnegie Fellow and Fulbright-Kalam Fellow awardee, which supports her work on climate mitigation and adaptation in agriculture. She holds a B.A. in Physics from NYU, and masters and Ph.D. from the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. Prior to NYU, she was a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA GISS in NYC.

Dr. Purvi Mehta is the Senior Advisor for Global Growth and Opportunities at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has her formal education, up to PhD, from M.S. University, India, Tokyo University, Japan and North Carolina State University- USA. Dr. Mehta has worked with leading international organizations like the CGIAR, as head of Asia for the International Livestock Research Institute and as head of South Asia Biosafety program (IFPRI, USAID), and brings a blend of Asia and Africa experience.  

She is on the board of several organizations, including, International Alliance for Ecology and Health, International Centre for Rural Agriculture, Independent Director on Board of National Commodity Derivatives Exchange Ltd (NCDEX), Global Advisory Council- World Food Prize. She is also Adjunct Professor at Cornell University-USA. She has been closely associated with several agriculture and climate change policy platforms in India, South and Southeast Asia and Africa and serves on several committees and advisory panels. Dr. Mehta has two books and over 50 publications to her credit. She is also a regular contributor as invited columnist for media houses like Economic Times, Financial Express, Devex, CNBC TV etc.

Dr. Heidi Webber is a system agronomist with a focus on climate risk management in the context of smallholder farming systems. Her research uses a combination of on-farm experimentation, process-based crop model improvement and model-based climate risk and change impact assessments at field, farm and regional scales. Her model development expertise is in the consideration of multiple abiotic stressors on crop growth, particularly the interaction of temperature and drought stress controlling canopy temperature. Her research also explores the integration of biophysical and bio-economic modelling approaches to assess climate risk to cropping systems. Heidi co-leads the Agricultural Landscape Systems’ Research Area at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and holds the Professorship of Integrated Crop System Analysis and Modelling at the Brandenburg University of Technology in Germany.