Position Title
Topics of Interest: Food Security, International Economics, Agroecology, Sustainability, Agroforestry, Climate Change, Integrated Pest Management, Systems Dynamics, Geography, Biopesticides
Originally hailing from the island of Guam, I have built my life and career around a fundamental lesson from my island home: the world is finite and we are all interconnected through the scarcity of its resources. Exploring the implications of this lesson led me to study International Economics at Hendrix College and dedicate my career to creating a more sustainable agro-ecological system. After graduating I joined the Peace Corps and served as a Agricultural Development Volunteer in Ghana, where my projects focused on agricultural capacity building (subsistence farming, cashew agroforestry), secondary income generation (beekeeping, mushroom cultivation), local microfinance, water and sanitation, and communication/outreach for development. After my two years as a Volunteer, I joined the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, designing and implementing sanitary and phytosanitary development programs - which aim to assess and mitigate risks to animal health, plant health and food safety - in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Ukraine and Georgia. I believe that our food systems are the foundational interaction between human society and the surrounding ecosystems, and that building a sustainable system of human-food-environmental stewardship is one of the preeminent challenges of our time.
I applied to the UC Davis International Agricultural Development program because I am extremely interested in developing systems which replicate the sustainable features found in natural environment – examples include frameworks like integrated pest management and conservation agriculture. I hope to explore how new technologies and cultural interactions might also be incorporated to a broader systems-approach to agro-ecological development, somewhat akin to the WHO One Health initiative. Overall I find passion in food security projects because of the strong connection food cultivation has to our culture and our environment, and my guiding desire is to build skills which will get me out into the (literal and figurative) field. When I am not working on food security projects, I seek other ways to connect with people and nature, often through playing music, mountaineering and boating