Krista Isaacs biography

Krista Isaacs is an Assistant Professor of International Seed Systems at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on improving smallholder farmers’ access and availability to preferred, quality seed. She combines participatory processes, crop ecology, and qualitative methods to co-learn with farmers and generate innovative strategies for improving agricultural production that build upon farmer knowledge systems, preferences and worldviews. 

Isaacs was previously a gender postdoctoral research fellow at ICRISAT Mali, where she worked on gender, trait preferences, participatory plant breeding and supporting decentralized seed producers. Other research areas include agriculture-nutrition pathways, agricultural policies, and socio-ecological and functional aspects of agro-biodiversity.

Isaacs received her Ph.D. in Crop and Soil Sciences from Michigan State University and her Master’s degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University. 

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