Natural Resources Institute

Staff

Name Details
Mark Parnell
  • Qualifications: MSc
  • Biography:

    NRI Commercial Manager and invertebrate pathologist. Twenty-eight years’ experience working in sustainable development, comprising: 16 years' experience of project management; twelve years’ experience of research and development on insect diseases as crop protection tools in the tropics.

    Key expertise:

    Project financial management (pre and post-award); grant application processes; project management; client liaison; biopesticide development.

    In-country experience:

    Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Benin, India, Ghana, Thailand and Bolivia.
  • Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (GALA) link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/view/authors/812.html
  • External Profiles:

    ORCID

    https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2703-350X
  • Selected Publications:
Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3255
Commercial Manager
Professor Sheryl L Hendriks
  • Qualifications: BSc, BScHons, MSc, PhD, Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (ASSAf)
  • Biography:

    Professor Sheryl L Hendriks is Professor of Food Security and Director of the NRI. She previously held positions at the Universities of Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal and Natal, South Africa. She is an internationally recognised transdisciplinary researcher focussing on food security. She has extensive experience in the design of policy frameworks, policy analysis and programme design. Her research focuses on food security policy analysis at the national and global levels. More recently her work has focussed on food systems analysis, including sustainable and healthy diets.

    She is actively engaged in high-level global food security policy think tanks and panels as well as being influential in food systems research and policy debates. Some of these engagements include co-leading the Action Track on Nutritious, Safe Food for the United Nations (UN) Food Systems Summit Scientific Group, the Malabo-Montpellier Panel advising African governments on public policy choices and a member of the UN Committee on Food Security’s High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition from 2010 to 2015. She led the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme’s (CAADP) Food Security Pillar from 2006 to 2010 and the drafting of the Inter-Academy Partnership’s consensus report on Food and Nutrition and Agriculture report and was a member of the team drafting the global synthesis report on this topic. This work led to her appointment as a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2020.
  • Research / Scholarly Interests:

    My research focusses on transdisciplinary solutions to our complex global challenges to influence the next iteration of the global development agenda. I am particularly interested in the tensions, tradeoffs and opportunities determined by eight elements: 3 Cs (climate change, COVID and conflict) and 5Fs (food, fodder, fuel, fertiliser and finance) – each a crisis and yet interconnected. I am curious to understand the impact of these decisions and options on our future, especially how the impact of food system transformation processes and dietary shifts could have on climate change and planetary boundaries as well as on health, nutrition, affordability and inequality.
  • Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (GALA) link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/user/10793
  • Responsibilities:

    Member: CAB Reviews journal Editorial Advisory Board, 2021 – ongoing.

    Editorial Team member, Global Food Security (October 2022 – current).

    Member Expert Advisory Group: FOODCost (EU-funded) project led by Wageningen University’s, 2022 – 2024

    Member: Economist Intelligence Unit’s Expert Panel for the revision of the Global Food Security Index, 2022

    Member: Scientific Group and Action Track Core and Leadership Team, UN World Food Systems Summit, 2021

    Member: Malabo-Montpellier Panel - a group of leading African and European experts from the fields of agriculture, ecology, nutrition, public policy and global development. (2017 – current).

    Member of the InterAcademy Partnership Working Group for the drafting of the Food and Nutrition Security and Agriculture report for Africa and the Globe (2016 – 2019).
  • Awards:

    Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (admitted 2021)

    B2 rated researcher (internationally acclaimed), National Research Foundation of South Africa (2022 – 2027)

    Member of the UN Food Systems Summit Scientific Group, 2021

    FR Tomlinson Commemorative Medal (Feb 2018). Association of Agricultural Economics of South Africa.

    Founding Member:  Committee for World Food Security (CFS) High-Level Expert Panel (HLPE) on Food Security and Nutrition, September 2010 – Oct 2013. Reappointed Oct 2013 – 2015.

    Nils Westermark Award for the best-contributed poster paper, International Agricultural Economics Association Conference, Gold Coast Australia, 12 – 18 August 2006. 

    Distinguished Teacher’s Award, University of Natal, 2003 for teaching excellence and establishment of the Food Security Programme.
  • External Profiles:

    Facebook

    https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008405081840

    X

    https://twitter.com/SherylHendriks

    ORCID

    http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1487-4302

    SCOPUS

    http://www.scopus.com/inward/authorDetails.url?authorID=6603471849&partnerID=MN8TOARS

    ResearcherID (WoS)

    https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/421340

    African Scientists Directory

    http://africanscientists.africa/business-directory/hendriks/

    ResearchGate

    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sheryl_Hendriks

    Academia

    https://up-za.academia.edu/SherylHendriks

    Google Scholar

    https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=YT2Lw9IAAAAJ&hl=en
  • Selected Publications:
    1. Hussain, I; Hendriks, SL; Schonfeldt, HC. (2023) The effect of land tenure across food security outcomes among smallholder farmers using a flexible conditional difference-in-difference approach. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 21 (1):2220900. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2023.2220900
    2. von Braun, J., & Hendriks, S. L. (2023). Full-cost accounting and redefining the cost of food: Implications for agricultural economics research. Agricultural Economics, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12774.
    3. Atieno P and Hendriks SL (2022).  The effects of outdated data and outliers on Kenya's 2019 Global Food Security Index score and rank. Paper submitted to  CABI Agriculture and Bioscience, 4:6. DOI: 10.1186/s43170-023-00140-y.  
    4. Sixt, GN; Tichenor Blackstone, N; Engler, A; Robins, J, Webb, P. A New Convergent Science Model is Needed to Achieve Food and Climate Systems Transformation. Paper accepted by Food and Energy Security, 11:e423. https://doi.org/10.1002/fes3.423
    5. Kennedy, E., Torero, M., Mozaffarian, D., Masters, W., Steiner, R., Hendriks, SL., Morrison, J., Merrigan, K., Ghosh, S., Mason-Croz, D. (forthcoming), Beyond the Food Systems Summit: Linking Recommendations to Action -True Cost Accounting. Paper accepted for publication in Current Developments in Nutrition, Nove 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2023.100028
    6. Madalitso A. Kamenya, Sheryl L. Hendriks, Colleta Gandidzanwa, John Ulimwengu and Sunday Odjo (2022). Public agriculture investment and food security and nutrition in ECOWAS. Food Policy, 113, 02349.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102349.
    7. Hendriks, SL; Benson, T; Badiane, O; Castro de la Mata, G; Fanzo, J; Guinto, RR; Montgomery, H; Soussana, JF. (2022). Climate, COVID-19 and conflict threaten health, food security and nutrition. Invited paper accepted for publication, British Medical Journal, 378: e07153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-071534.
    8.  Hendriks, SL (2022). More sustainable small-scale fisheries can help people and the planet. Nature, 606: 650 - 652.  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01683-2.
    9. Hussain, I; Hendriks, SL; Schonfeldt, HC. (2022). The effects of smallholder land tenure on child malnutrition in Nigeria. Land Use Policy, 119:106214, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106214. 
    10. Fitawek, W and Hendriks, SL. (2022). Large-scale agricultural investments and household vulnerability to food insecurity: Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique. African Journal on Land Policy and Geospacial Sciences, 5 (1), 107 – 138. https://revues.imist.ma/index.php/AJLP-GS/index.
    11. Fanzo, J.; Haddad, L.; Schneider, K.R.; Béné, C.; Covic, N.M.; Guarin, A.; Herforth, A.W.; Herrero, M.; Sumaila, U.R., Aburto, N.J., Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, M., Barquera, S., Battersby, J., Beal, T., Bizzotto Molina, P., Brusset, E., Cafiero, C., Campeau, C., Caron, P., Cattaneo, A., Conforti, P., Davis, C., DeClerck, F.A.J., Elouafi, I., Fabi, C., Gephart, J.A., Golden, C.D., Hendriks, S.L., Huang, J., Laar, A., Lal, R., Lidder, P., Loken, B., Marshall, Q., Masuda, Y.J., McLaren, R., Neufeld, L.M., Nordhagen, S., Remans, R., Resnick, D., Silverberg, M., Torero Cullen, M., Tubiello, F.N., Vivero-Pol, J.L., Wei, S., and Rosero Moncayo, J. (2021) Viewpoint: Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals.  Food Policy, 104,102163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102163.
    12. Christoph Oberlack, Markus Giger, Ward Anseeuw, Camilla Adelle, Magalie Bourblanc, Perrine Burnod, Sandra Eckert, Wegayehu Fitawek, Eve Fouilleux, Sheryl Hendriks, Boniface Kiteme, Livhuwani Masola, Zaka Diana Mawoko, Sara Mercandalli, Aurélien Reys, Maya da Silva, Michael van der Laan, Julie Zaehringer, Peter Messerli (2021). Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique. Accepted for publication in Ecology and Society, 26(4): 18. https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss4/art18/. 
    13. Sheryl Hendriks, Jean-François Soussana, Martin Cole, Andrew Kambugu, and David Zilberman (2023). Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems. In: Joachim von Braun, Kaosar Afsana, Louise O. Fresco, Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan (Editors). Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation, Springer, Cham. Page 31 – 58.
    14. Sheryl Hendriks, Adrian de Groot Ruiz, Mario Herrero Acosta,Hans Baumers, Pietro Galgani, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Cecile Godde, Katharina Waha, Dimitra Kanidou, Joachim von Braun, Mauricio Benitez, Jennifer Blanke, Patrick Caron, Jessica Fanzo, Friederike Greb, Lawrence Haddad, Anna Herforth, Danie Jordaan, William Masters, Claudia Sadoff, Jean-François Soussana, Maria Cristina Tirado,Maximo Torero, and Matthew Watkin, (2023). The True Cost of Food: A Preliminary Assessment. In: Joachim von Braun, Kaosar Afsana, Louise O. Fresco, Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan (Editors). Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation, Springer, Cham. Page 581 – 602.
    15. William A. Masters, Elena M. Martinez, Friederike Greb, Anna Herforth,and Sheryl L. Hendriks, (2023). The Cost and Affordability of Preparing a Basic Meal Around the World. In: Joachim von Braun, Kaosar Afsana, Louise O. Fresco, Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan (Editors). Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation, Springer, Cham. Page 603 – 624.
    16. Ousmane Badiane, Sheryl L. Hendriks, Katrin Glatzel, Fadi Abdelradi, Assefa Admassie, John Asafu Adjaye, Miltone Ayieko, Endashaw Bekele, Thameur Chaibi, Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan, Mame Samba Mbaye, Fatima Ezzahra Mengoub, Douglas W. Miano, John H. Muyonga, Tolulope Olofinbiyi, Racha Ramadan, and Simbarashe Sibanda. (2023). Policy Options for Food System Transformation in Africa and the Role of Science, Technology and Innovation. In: Joachim von Braun, Kaosar Afsana, Louise O. Fresco, Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan (Editors). Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation, Springer, Cham. Page 713 – 736.
Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3297
Director of Natural Resources Institute
Samantha Raven
  • Biography:

    Contracts co-ordinator. Responsible for negotiating and administering NRI's contracts, with expertise in: providing guidance on all contractual issues (including contract law and intellectual property rights); liaising with NRI's key clients; and advising NRI colleagues on the issuing of sub-contracts. Previous administrative experience within NRI includes: file records management and registration; corporate publications and publicity; and personnel support.
Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3171
Contract Manager
Sharron Field
  • Biography:

    Sharron has worked with the Natural Resources Institute since January 2001. In her role as Awards and Grants Manger she is responsible for line managing and coordinating the Post Awards Team ensuring efficient and effective financial regulatory guidance and professional services support is provided to the NRI’s operations. Sharron is responsible in ensuring the smooth and efficient management of NRI-project and grant finances from inception to project completion, ensuring audit and financial reporting obligations of external clients and donors are met.
  • External Profiles:

    LinkedIn

    https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sharron-field-32682073
Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3131
Awards & Grants Manager
Stephen Young Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3297
Statistician
Teju Desai Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3194
IT Systems Developer
Toni Moreby Phone: +44 (0)1634 883181
Contracts Administrator
Caroline Troy
  • Qualifications: MBA, MA, PGDip in Leadership & Management, ILM Level 3, NVQ Level 4
  • Biography:

    Caroline Troy is NRI's Senior Strategy Support Manager. She has worked with NRI since October 1990 and in her role she is responsible for supporting the implementation of NRI's strategic plan with particular focus on income generation through knowledge exchange and postgraduate teaching and learning. Caroline is responsible for planning and coordinating NRI's comprehensive events programme including project conferences, symposia, and visitor hosting, while also driving NRI's marketing strategy and social media communications to build the institute's reputation. She covers development and delivery of marketing materials, postgraduate programme promotion, alumni engagement, and strategic stakeholder relationship building. She also oversees NRI's travel procedures and logistics, manages financial planning and budget tracking for events and activities, and maintains KE Framework data for reporting. Caroline has managed events and travel arrangements across multiple continents supporting NRI's international project portfolio and has travelled and managed events in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Benin, Uganda, Spain, Rwanda, Colombia, India, Vietnam, and the UK.
Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3156
Senior Strategy Support Manager
Dr Huiyi Yang
  • Qualifications: BSc, PhD
  • Biography:

    Huiyi Yang joined  NRI in May 2020. His research focuses on using modelling approaches to understand climate change and air pollution impacts on crop production and food security, especially for those regions most vulnerable to climate change.  He also has interests in assessing uncertainty and adaptation approaches to climate change.

    Huiyi obtained his BSc and PhD from the University of Leeds. He initially trained in climate and atmospheric science and then expanded his research into climate change impacts on agriculture through his work at the University of Exeter and Rothamsted Research. This broadening of expertise has made  his work more interdisciplinary and has positioned him well for  contributing substantively to this growing area of research.

    Huiyi has extensive experience in numerical modelling. He developed a new crop (i.e. winter wheat) within the Met Office Land Surface Model (LSM) JULES/JULES-Crop and evaluated the air pollution impacts on crop yield/production and the regional carbon cycle. He used the GLAM crop model to access the crop yield and failure rates for the East Asian Monsoon region under a geoengineered climate. He also used the SPACSYS model to simulate the crop rotation system for the Loess region.

    Huiyi began his career studying radiation effects on the atmosphere using an LEM model focusing on evaluating the response of the atmosphere to using observed ice particle shapes in radiation rather than the often-used idealised shapes.   Huiyi has been involved in many international modelling projects, including developing a case study for a model inter-comparison project on cirrus clouds (GCSS WG2).
  • Research / Scholarly Interests:

    Huiyi’s research interests focus on interaction between agriculture, climate and humans. He is interested in developing a better understanding of:

    • Development and evaluation of LSM and crop models by using observational data from field experiments.
    • The impact of climate (e.g CMIP, GeoMIP etc) and environmental factors (ozone, aerosol, etc) on crop yield/production, and the consequent social-economic impacts.
    • Evaluating the feasibility of adaptations under different weather conditions especially brought about by climate change, such as drought or high temperature.
    • Regional and global impacts on water, carbon, and the nitrogen cycle due to climate change.

    Field experimental science is fundamental and of vital importance for underpinning modelling work. This is still the key challenge for modelling communities to understand the impact of climate and environmental changes on agriculture and human societies properly. To fulfil the gap, Huiyi has collaborated closely with field scientists to develop and evaluate models. Huiyi is also interested in combining statistics with LSM and crop models to improve model predictions.
  • Research Projects:
    • 2018-2021: Rothamsted Research. Research grant, The critical zone ecosystem service integrated system model of the Loess Plateau (CZIMLP)
    • 2017-2019: University of Exeter. Research grant, The Climate Science for Service Partnership China (CSSP-China) Air pollution risk to agriculture and forest health in China.
    • 2012-2015: Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. Research grant, Parameterization of ice habit vertical structure in GCM (PI).
  • Teaching Programmes:

    Huiyi has past experience contributing to the following teaching at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds:

    • Computer Systems and Programming (SOEE2240)
    • Intermediate Mathematics for Env Scientists (SOEE1300)
    • Advanced Mathematics for Env Scientitsts (SOEE1310)
    • Advanced Mathematics for Scientists (SOEE2340)
  • Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (GALA) link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/user/8216
  • Awards:

    Organising committee of UK-China Oversea Scholar Conference (UCOS), Leeds, UK, (2015).
  • External Profiles:

    ORCID

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2825-3750
  • Selected Publications:
    • Yang, Huiyi, Dobbie, Steven, Ramirez-Villegas, Julian, Chen, Bing, Qiu, Shaojun, Ghosh, Sat and Challinor, Andy (2020) ‘South India projected to be susceptible to high future groundnut failure rates for future climate change and geo-engineered scenarios’, Science of The Total Environment. Elsevier, 747, p. 141240. doi: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2020.141240. GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28992/
    • Chen, Changqing, van Groenigen, Kees Jan, Yang, Huiyi, Hungate, Bruce A., Yang, Bing, Tian, Yunlu, Chen, Jin, Dong, Wenjun, Huang, Shan, Deng, Aixing, Jiang, Yu and Zhang, Weijian (2020) ‘Global warming and shifts in cropping systems together reduce China’s rice production’, Global Food Security. Elsevier, 24, p. 100359. doi: 10.1016/J.GFS.2020.100359. GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28847/
    • Chen, Bing, Wu, Chenglai, Liu, Xiaohong, Chen, Liangfu, Wu, Jian, Yang, H., Luo, Tao, Wu, Xue, Jiang, Yiquan, Jiang, Lei, Brown, Hunter Y., Lu, Zheng, Fan, Wenxuan, Lin, Guo, Sun, Bo and Wu, Mingxuan (2019) ‘Seasonal climatic effects and feedbacks of anthropogenic heat release due to global energy consumption with CAM5’, Climate Dynamics. Springer, 52(11), pp. 6377–6390. doi: 10.1007/s00382-018-4528-1.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28848/
    • Chen, Ji, Luo, Yiqi, García-Palacios, Pablo, Cao, Junji, Dacal, Marina, Zhou, Xuhui, Li, Jianwei, Xia, Jianyang, Niu, Shuli, Yang, Huiyi, Shelton, Shelby, Guo, Wei and van Groenigen, Kees Jan (2018) ‘Differential responses of carbon-degrading enzyme activities to warming: Implications for soil respiration’, Global Change Biology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 24(10), pp. 4816–4826. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14394.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28849/
    • Gao, Yao, Markkanen, Tiina, Aurela, Mika, Mammarella, Ivan, Thum, Tea, Tsuruta, Aki, Yang, Huiyi and Aalto, Tuula (2017) ‘Response of water use efficiency to summer drought in a boreal Scots pine forest in Finland’, Biogeosciences, 14(18), pp. 4409–4422. doi: 10.5194/bg-14-4409-2017.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28868/
    • Yang, Huiyi, Dobbie, Steven, Ramirez-Villegas, Julian, Feng, Kuishuang, Challinor, Andrew J., Chen, Bing, Gao, Yao, Lee, Lindsay, Yin, Yan, Sun, Laixiang, Watson, James, Koehler, Ann-Kristin, Fan, Tingting and Ghosh, Sat (2016) ‘Potential negative consequences of geoengineering on crop production: A study of Indian groundnut’, Geophysical Research Letters. doi: 10.1002/2016GL071209.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28850/
    • Butt, E. W., Rap, A., Schmidt, A., Scott, C. E., Pringle, K. J., Reddington, C. L., Richards, N. A. D., Woodhouse, M. T., Ramirez-Villegas, J., Yang, H., Vakkari, V., Stone, E. A., Rupakheti, M., S. Praveen, P., G. van Zyl, P., P. Beukes, J., Josipovic, M., Mitchell, E. J. S., Sallu, S. M., Forster, P. M., and Spracklen, D. V.: The impact of residential combustion emissions on atmospheric aerosol, human health, and climate, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 873–905, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-873-2016, 2016.GALA Link: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28865/
    • Yang, Huiyi, Dobbie, Steven, Herbert, Ross, Connolly, Paul, Gallagher, Martin, Ghosh, Sat, Al-Jumur, Sardar M. R. K. and Clayton, James (2012) ‘The effect of observed vertical structure, habits, and size distributions on the solar radiative properties and cloud evolution of cirrus clouds’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 138(666), pp. 1221–1232. doi: 10.1002/qj.973. GALA Link: under review
    • Yang, H., Dobbie, S., Mace, G. G., Ross, A. and Quante, M. (2012) ‘GEWEX Cloud System Study (GCSS) cirrus cloud working group: development of an observation-based case study for model evaluation’, Geoscientific Model Development. Copernicus GmbH, 5(3), pp. 829–843. doi: 10.5194/gmd-5-829-2012. GALA Link: under review
Fellow in Agri-environmental Modelling
Dr June Y T Po
  • Qualifications: BSc, MSc, PhD
  • Biography:

    June joined NRI in January 2020. Before joining NRI, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Laval University (Canada). Her postdoctoral research focused on the rural livelihoods of ethnic minorities who produce traditionally distilled rice and maize alcohol in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands.

    June uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore issues regarding social-ecological resilience, gender and development, social norms and values, adaptive capacity, and resource governance that are integral to the livelihoods of marginalised communities. She has research experience in sustainable rural livelihoods, food and nutritional security, inter-institutional dynamics in natural resource governance, biomass cooking fuel use and population health. She has field experience from Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Vietnam.

    June graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2008 with a double degree in Biochemistry and Psychology. She worked on mRNA turnover in African Trypanosomes at the Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, bioluminescence imaging of Toxoplasma gondii infection at CIHR-UBC Translational Research in Infectious Diseases, and Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation as an undergraduate research assistant. She gained a MSc in Global Health and Population in 2010, mentored by Prof. Richard Levins and Prof. S V Subramanian, at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. After the MSc completion, she worked at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies as an analyst. She contributed to the development of an estimation of household permanent income from physical assets ownership in LMIC and an index of reproductive health laws from 1960 to 2009 in 186 countries. In 2017, she gained a PhD in social-ecological systems and food security, supervised by Prof. Gordon Hickey at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
  • Research / Scholarly Interests:

    Dr June Po has a keen interest in understanding feedbacks and dynamics of social-ecological resilience. In particular, topics on:

    • transformations to sustainability
    • agency, power, and gender dynamics
    • sustainable food systems
    • planetary boundaries and health
    • institutional interplay in natural resource governance
    • diverse and hybrid knowledge systems

    She is also interested in operationalising action research on conservation/ regenerative agriculture and climate change, incorporating insights from soil science, agroecology, development geography, political ecology, and co-construction of knowledge between technical experts and other societal groups.
  • Research Projects:

    2021-2026: UK Food Systems Centre for Doctoral Training

    Funding: UKRI Strategic Priority Fund

    Led by Professor Andrew Westby with a consortium of 9 partner institutions, I contributed as PhD Programme Lead and CDT co-manager.

    2020-2022: SENTINEL: Social and Environmental Trade-Offs in African Agriculture

    Funding: Global Challenge Research Fund

    I collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the UK, Ghana, Zambia, and Ethiopia to examine the trade-offs of forest conservation and agricultural expansion.

    2021-2022: African Agriculture Knowledge Transfer Partnership

    Funding: Innovate UK - co-Investigator

    This partnership between NRI, Egerton University, and Anolei Women Camel Milk Co-operative aims to expand camel milk commodity value chain in East Africa through improved production, processing, storage and novel product development, such as a semi-soft cheese called “Camelbert”, with a focus on knowledge and technology adoption, and women’s entrepreneurial empowerment to the proposed research.

    2018-2019: Distilling livelihoods: traditional alcohol and livelihood diversification among ethnic minorities in the uplands of northern Vietnam

    Funding: Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture – Postdoctoral Fellowship

    In the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands, the growing middle class of Kinh lowlanders and the expansion of the tourism industry in the uplands has increased the demand for traditionally distilled alcohol produced by ethnic minority communities. This research explores how traditional ecological knowledge of local alcohol within Hmong and Yao ethnic minority communities is changing under the context of state cultural preservation policy and development goals.

    2015-2019: Developing a framework to address the challenges of multi-level rules of governance in social-ecological systems

    Funding: Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science

    Building on Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework, a group of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows at the Sustainable Futures Research Laboratory developed and applied the Inter-Institutional Gap framework on four cases of natural resource governance in Bangladesh, Canada, India, and South Korea. This research has resulted in a peer-reviewed article in the International Journal of the Commons and a special issue in Society & Natural Resources.

    2012-2016: Innovating for Resilient Farming Systems in Semi-arid Kenya

    Funding: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Global Affairs Canada (previously named Canadian International Development Agency) (2011-14), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2012-15), Réseau de recherche en santé des populations du Québec (2015), and Margaret A. Gilliam Fellowship in Food Security (2016).

    As a doctoral researcher, June examined the relationships between Kamba women’s access to land resources and child growth, focusing on local, gendered institutions on land allocation, women’s agricultural decision-making, and social capital. She also acquired external funding to disseminate research findings to local participants, primarily Kamba women and farmers, after project completion.
  • Teaching Programmes:

    MSc course, guest lecturer, NRI:

    • Agricultural and Natural Resources Innovation for Development, Agriculture for Sustainable Development and Global Environmental Change programme

    BSc course, guest lecturer, Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences:

    • Introduction to Public Health and Health Promotion
    • Community Development and Engagement

    Workshop: three-day qualitative research methods seminar in collaboration with colleagues from NRI, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and University of Reading. The research seminar is tailored towards the research proposals and methodological needs of African doctoral students among the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).
  • Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (GALA) link: https://gala.gre.ac.uk/view/authors/7834.html
  • Responsibilities:

    Staff Mental Health Champion
  • Awards:
    • 2018 – 2019 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Fonds de recherche du Québec société et culture
    • 2015 – 2016 Margaret A. Gilliam Fellowship in Food Security
    • 2015 Seed Grant, Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science (Team applicant)
    • 2015 Research Dissemination Grant, Concours Regroupement Stratégique en Santé Mondiale du Réseau de Recherche en Santé des Populations du Québec
    • 2012-2015 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship
    • 2009 World Bank Grant Competition South Asia Regional Development Marketplace on Nutrition (Team applicant)

    Membership

    • Member American Association of Geographers
  • External Profiles:

    ORCID

    https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6124-8235

    LinkedIn

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/june-po-05aa058/

    Google Scholar

    https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=xOmJv8YAAAAJ&hl=en
  • Selected Publications:
    • Picchioni, F, Po, JYT, Forsythe, L. (2021). Strengthening resilience in response to COVID-19: a call to integrate social reproduction in sustainable food systems. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 42(1-2): 28-36.
    • Jellason, NP, Robinson, EJZ, Chapman, ASA, Neina, D, Devenish, AJM, Po, JYT, Adolph, B. (2021). A systematic review of drivers and constraints on agricultural expansion in sub-Saharan Africa. Land, 10(3):332.
    • Po, JYT and Hickey, GM. (2020). Cross-scale relationships between social capital and women's participation in decision-making on the farm: A multilevel study in semi-arid Kenya. Journal of Rural Studies, 78: 333-349.
    • Po, JYT, Langill, J, Turner, S and Michaud, J. (2020). Distilling culture into commodity? The emergent homemade alcohol trade and gendered livelihoods in upland northern Vietnam. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 21(5): 397-415.
    • Po, JYT, Saint Ville, A, Rahman, HMT, and Hickey, GM. (Eds.) (2019) On Institutional diversity and interplay in natural resource governance. Society and Natural Resources. DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2019.1667463
    • Po, JYT, Bukania, Z, Muhammad, L, and Hickey, GM. (2019) Associations between women’s agricultural decision-making and child nutritional status in semi-arid Kenya: an empirical study. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition. DOI: 10.1080/19320248.2019.1617214
    • Saint Ville, A., Po, JYT, Sen, A, Bui, A, and Melgar Quiñonez, H. (Eds.) (2019) Special section: Food security and Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES): Ensuring progress by 2030. Food Security. DOI: 10.1007/s12571-019-00936-9
    • Rahman, HMT, Po, JYT, Saint Ville, AS, Brunet, ND, Clare, S, Pigford, A, Darling, S, and Hickey, GM. (2019) Legitimacy of different knowledge types in natural resource governance and their functions in inter-institutional gaps. Society and Natural Resources. DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2019.1658140
    • Po, JYT, and Hickey, GM. (2018) Local institutions and smallholder women’s access to land resources in semi-arid Kenya. Land Use Policy, 76: 252-263. DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.055
    • Rahman, HMT, Saint Ville, AS, Song, AM, Po, JYT, Berthet, E, Brammer, JR, Brunet, ND, Jayaprakash, G,  Lowitt KN, Rastogi, A, Reed, G, and Hickey, GM. (2017) Inter-institutional Gap Framework: Addressing the challenges of multi-level rules for governance in social-ecological systems. International Journal of the Commons, 11(2): 823–853. DOI: 10.18352/ijc.758
    • Po, JYT, Finlay, JE, Brewster, MB and Canning, D. (2012) Estimating Household Permanent Income from Ownership of Physical Assets. Program of Global Demography of Aging Working Paper Series, #97.
    •  Finlay, JE, Canning, D, and Po, JYT. (2012). Reproductive Health Laws Around the World. Harvard University Program of Global Demography of Aging Working Paper Series #96.
    • Po, JYT, and Subramanian, SV. (2011) Mortality burden and socioeconomic status in India. PLoS ONE 6(2): e16844. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016844
    • Po, JYT, FitzGerald, JM, and Carlsten, C. (2011) Respiratory disease associated with solid biomass fuel exposure in rural women and children: systematic review and meta-analysis. Thorax, 66(3):232-239. DOI: 10.1136/thx.2010.147884.
    • Wurst, M, Robles, A, Po, J, Luu, VD, Brems, S, Marentije, M, … Clayton, C. (2009) An RNAi screen of the RRM-domain proteins of Trypanosoma brucei. Molecular Biochemical Parasitology, 163(1):61-65.
    • Clayton, C, Schwede, A, Stewart, M, Robles, A, Benz, C, Po, J, … Archer, S. (2008) Control of mRNA degradation in trypanosomes. Biochemical Society Transactions, 36(3):520-521.

    Book Section

    • Quan, J, Forsythe, L, Po, JYT. (2021) Advancing women’s position by recognizing and strengthening customary land rights: Lessons from community-based land interventions in Mozambique. In U.E. Chigbu (Ed.), Land Governance and Gender: The Tenure-Gender Nexus in Land Management and Land Policy (pp. ). CABI (in press)
    • Saint-Ville, A, Po, JYT, Sanatan, A. (2021) RastafarI and the formal state in their struggles for food sovereignty: A case of Jamaica in the English-speaking Caribbean. In A Pigford & HMT Rahman (Eds.), Institutional Diversity and Environmental Sustainability. CRC Press. (under review)
    • Po, JYT, and Bukania, Z. (2016) Land to feed my grand-children: grand-mothers’ challenge to access land resources in dryland Kenya. In L. Brownhill, et al. (Eds.), Food Security, Gender and Resilience: Improving Smallholder and Subsistence Farming (pp. 55-72). London, UK: Earthscan.
    • James, C, and Po, JYT. (2016) Banking on change: an ethnographic exploration into rural finance as a gendered resilience practice among smallholders. In: L. Brownhill, et al. (Eds.), Food Security, Gender and Resilience: Improving Smallholder and Subsistence Farming (pp. 90-104). London, UK: Earthscan.
Phone: +44 (0)1634 88 3644
Senior Lecturer in Gender and Diversity in Food Systems

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