Project Staff - Fodder Innovation Project

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Project Staff
	Ranjitha Puskur, Project Manager, Fodder Innovation Project and ILRI Operating Project Leader - Innovation in Livestock System
	Dr Ranjitha Puskur who is managing the project since April 2009, leads the ILRI Operating Project on Innovation in Livestock Systems. She provides leadership for developing the strategy, managing operations and human resources and, raising funds in the operating project. Together with the team, she forges partnerships with other ILRI Themes and external partners, to enable translation of ILRI knowledge outputs into developmental outcomes. Her work focuses on adaptation and application of Innovation Systems principles for addressing complex developmental problems. Her areas of expertise include Innovation Systems Analysis, Gender and knowledge management.
	Email : r.puskur@cgiar.org
	India
	Tesfaye Beshah, Post Doctoral Scientist
	Dr.Tesfaye Beshah is from Ethiopia and holds PhD in Social Sciences (Communication and Innovation Specialist in Rural Development Studies) from Wageningen University and Research Center, The Netherlands. His masters has been in Management of Agricultural Knowledge Systems, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands. Before joining FIP II, he worked as Assistant Professor of Communication and Innovation for Rural Development in Alemaya University, Ethiopia.
	Email : t.beshah@cgiar.org
	Vamsidhar Reddy T.S, Special Project Scientist
	Mr Vamsidhar Reddy holds M.Sc. in Agriculture and was trained in Agriculture Research for Development at the International Center for development oriented Research in Agriculture (ICRA) in Wageningen, The Netherlands. He joined FIP II with nine years of practical experience in participatory approaches gained while facilitating different bi-lateral projects and professional assignments with focus on multi-stakeholder concerted action. Before joining FIP II he worked with ICRISAT as Visiting Scientist (Institutional Studies).
	Email : t.vamsidharreddy@cgiar.org

	Nigeria
	Iheanacho Okike, Country Programme Manager, ILRI, Nigeria
	(DVM - 1980; Ph.D. Agricultural Economics - 2000) has worked for 19 years in Nigeria's livestock service; 5 years as an independent consultant; and 3 years as an ILRI scientist. In Nigeria's national system, he provided technical and credit support to smallholder livestock farmers to improve livestock productivity and incomes from livestock and livestock products. As an independent consultant he completed 30 short term consultancies working with 6 international organizations in East and West Africa, including ILRI, IITA and the World Bank. Currently he contributes to ILRI projects and coordinates ILRI's activities in Nigeria. The main focus of his work in the last 10 years has been on intensification of crop-livestock systems, livestock marketing and more recently on avian influenza control. Email : i.okike@cgiar.org

	Madzudzo Elias, Post Doctoral Scientist
	Dr.Madzudozo Elias is from Zimbabwe and holds PhD in Social Sciences from roskilde university, denmark. he has 12 years experience of applied sociological studies in Zimbabwe and is familiar with urban and rural institution and community development activities in Southern Africa. Before joining FIP II he worked as Lecturer in the Department of Rural and Urban Planning, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.
	Email : e.madzudzo@cgiar.org
	UNU - MERIT Collaborators
	Andy Hall , Researcher
	Dr Andy Hall is a researcher at UNU-MERIT and, together with Jeroen Dijkman, coordinates LINK from his base in the LINK South Asia Rural Innovation Studies Hub in Hyderabad. His area of specialisation is the study of processes and policies associated with rural innovation in developing countries and is known for his pioneering work on the application of the innovation systems concept in agricultural development and research planning. Andy was previously based at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in India from 1997 2004, on secondment from the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, UK where he was a Reader in Innovation Systems. Andy received his PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies from SPRU, University of Sussex in 1994 and holds an MSc in Rural Resource management. He has extensive research experience in India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa and has published extensively in his area of specialisation.
	Email : andyhallmails@yahoo.com
	Associated LINK Collaborators
	Rasheed Sulaiman V, Director, Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy, (CRISP) and LINK South Asia Rural Innovation Policy Studies Hub
	Previously he was Senior Scientist at the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, India. The main area of his work relates to issues of institutional change and poverty relevance in relation to agricultural research and extension. He has worked on consultancy assignments with the Overseas Development Institute, UK, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics and the UNU-MERIT. Since 1999, Rasheed has been working on the development and application of the innovation systems concept in relations to agricultural research and rural development. His recent studies have focused on understanding innovation capacity in various rural sectors and the role of civil society organizations in promoting pro-poor rural innovation.
	Email : rasheed.sulaiman@gmail.com
	Mona Dhamankar
	Ms Mona Dhamankar is a freelance international development consultant and LINK Fellow. Her areas of specialisation include project formulation, program evaluation, development orientation of professionals, process documentation, capacity building, and institutional development for field-based programs related to rural extension and livestock-based livelihood interventions. As a consultant she has been a team member on evaluation design and implementation missions in India, South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka), Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso) and Bolivia with international donors. Prior to that she was a long-term consultant with NDDB assisting cooperative milk unions (Rajasthan, Kerala and A.P.) in formulating participatory extension strategies for productivity enhancement. Her development career began with a 14-year stint with the BAIF Development Research Foundation, large Indian NGO, where she set up an Information Resource Centre for development professionals and thereafter headed the organisation's Management Training Centre. Mona holds masters degrees in Information Science and Sociology. She is presently pursuing a PhD at the Department of Communication and Innovation Studies at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She is a Fulbright Scholar (USDA-NAL 1991-92), a LEAD Fellow (Leadership in Environment and Development Program), a trained human process facilitator/ behavioural trainer (ISISD) and dabbles with filmmaking in her spare time.
	Email : mona.dhamankar@gmail.com
	ICRISAT Collaborators
	P. Parthasarathy Rao, Senior Scientist, Economics
	Mr P. Parthasarathy Rao is senior scientist at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India. He holds an MSc degree in economics from Delhi University, India and has 25 years of research experience in the field of agricultural economics. His research areas include consumer preference for grain and fodder quality, crop competitiveness and supply response, crop-livestock linkages and agricultural diversification, markets and trade and commodity situation and outlook. During the last 5-7 years, Mr Parthasarathy has been associated with a number of large projects such as resource use efficiency and cropping pattern changes in India, sustainable rainfed agriculture in India, livestock productivity in mixed crop-livestock systems in South Asia, use of high yielding anthracnose resistant stylosanthes for production systems in India, diversification of agriculture in South Asia, exploring marketing opportunities for sorghum poultry feed through a research, industry, and users coalition, and promoting improved disease resistant groundnut varieties for peri-urban dairy production in India. Mr Parthasarathy has authored or co-authored about 65 scientific publications that include journal articles, book chapters, conference papers and proceedings and policy briefs. He is a member of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics and Indian Society of Agricultural Marketing. In the SLP he led a project on crop-livestock systems in South Asia and collaborates with a project on fodder innovations funded by DFID.
	Email : p.partha@cgiar.org
	Previous staff
	Peter Bezkorowajnyj
	Dr Peter Bezkorowajnyj was the Project Manager untill March 2009. Originally from Canada, he received his BSc (Animal and Poultry Sciences) and MSc (Environmental Biology / Agroforestry) from the University of Guelph, and his PhD from the University of Wales (Bangor) in the UK. Dr Bezkorowajnyj worked for the Centre for Arid Zone Studies at the University of Wales as a research fellow from 1991 to 2000, and then for Care International in Bangladesh and Concern Worldwide in Afghanistan before joining ILRI in September 2003. He has also worked on short and long term assignments in several other countries including Thailand, Laos, Nepal, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
	V.L. Prasad
	Dr Prasad worked as a Visiting Scientist untill March 2009. He has worked over 25 years in India, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Eritria on participatory research and development projects. Areas of expertise include animal production, Participatory research and analysis, sector reforms water and sanitation and livelihoods analysis of poor livestock keepers.