Hale Ann Tufan biography

Hale Ann Tufan is Associate Director for the Cornell-led FtF Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement. She also serves as the co-Director of the Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) project, Associate Director for Gender for International Programs, and adjunct faculty member of Plant Breeding and Genetics section at Cornell University. She has a multidisciplinary background spanning Ph.D.-level research in molecular plant pathogen interactions, plant breeding with CIMMYT, international agricultural research for development program management, and gender capacity and strategy development across SSA.

Her work focuses on building gender responsive agricultural research systems, through curriculum development and training delivery for GREAT, and leading research on priority setting, market research, gender research and on-farm testing for the Nextgen Cassava project and gender, quality trait preference profiling, and participatory processing evaluation for the RTBfoods project.

Hale is the 2019 recipient of the Norman Borlaug Field Award. She completed her PhD in molecular biology from the John Innes Centre, UK.