World Food Prize Winner and Principal Scientist, CIP

Working through Collaborative Partnerships to Exploit the Potential of Sweetpotato to Improve Nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa

Dr. Low will focus on her 25 year journey to convince research institutions, governments, non-governmental organizations, and donors that vitamin A sweetpotato could play a transformative role in sub-Saharan Africa; then lead a ten year Initiative focused on ensuring access to sweetpotato-based research outputs by smallholder farmers, and increasingly urban consumers.

Trained as an agricultural economist, with a PhD from Cornell University, Dr. Low minored in nutrition, and has long advocated for nutritional concerns being mainstreamed in breeding and dissemination programs targeting populations suffering from high levels of “hidden hunger” or micronutrient malnutrition.

As part of this effort, Dr. Low collaborated for over two decades with two sweetpotato breeders trained at North Carolina State University—Dr. Robert Mwanga of Uganda, and Dr. Maria Andrade of Cabo Verde.  Together, the three were honored to be awarded the 2016 World Food Prize for their work on biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato in Africa.

Dr. Low firmly believes that scientists must not only do good science, but need to be able to explain and promote their visions if they are going to be able to build the collaborations required to make a difference to those needing to benefit from their work.