Bryn Davies joined ILRI on 1 November  2013 as a Market and Capacity Development Manager with the Index Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) program. Previously, Bryn worked as consultant on a range of topic areas, including aflatoxin, public-private partnerships in agriculture, value chain assessments, and market entry analyses. Before moving to Kenya, Bryn worked in the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as an EMDAP fellow on a WTO Accession Project.  In addition to her development experience, Bryn brings to the table a private sector background where she was a buyer for a large, US clothing company, Abercrombie & Fitch.  As a former buyer, she has assisted small to medium size enterprises in Kenya and Ethiopia on expanding their product line, improving sales, and making connections with buyers in the US and Europe.  She is currently pursuing an MSc in Agricultural Economics with the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies.  She graduated from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University with her M.A. in 2007 and received her B.A. from Middlebury College in 2002.

Bernhard Hack has joined ILRI, KMIS group on 17 November 2013 as Reseach Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing Specialist under the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM) program. He is specializing in Online Communication and Knowledge Management for Development. He focuses on helping people to work better with their colleagues and clients by using social collaboration tools. His background is in Development Studies and he holds an MA in Anthropology of Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

He has been working for the GIZ on knowledge sharing and online communication since 2009. In this capacity he has supported researchers at ICARDA in Syria where he led the web team and set up the institute’s internet and social media presences and introduced online collaboration tools. While working at the GIZ headquarters in Bonn he recently helped develop and implement the company’s social media strategy. He also contributed to the conceptual development of enterprise social networks and advised departments on their online media portfolios. Before joining the GIZ he worked as an independent knowledge management consultant and as a campaigner for several NGOs. His position at ILRI is supported by German development cooperation and he is tasked with leveraging enterprise 2.0 tools to create an enabling online environment for research collaboration.

Muhammad Ibrahim has been involved with ILRI project/program since 1998, in 2003 he joined ILRI as the Project coordinator for the GEF-UNEP-ILRI GEF Asia project. He will be moving to Pakistan and as from 1 January 2014 and will be designated as the Country Representative for Pakistan. He holds the positions of Regional Project Coordinator for the GEF-UNEP-ILRI FAnGR Project, which is a collaborative project between Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam titled Development and Application of Decision-support tools to conserve and sustainable use Genetic Diversity in indigenous livestock and wild relatives’, and also serves as the Project Manager for the Livestock component of the USAID funded Agriculture Innovation Program in Pakistan

 Randall Ritzema joined ILRI as a Scientist – Systems Analysis in the Livestock Systems and Environment program on 1 November 2013, and is based in the Addis Ababa office.  Prior to joining ILRI, Randall was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) on the Addis campus, where he performed integrated assessment modeling under the CPWF Nile Basin Development Challenge.  He also worked for a number of years as a water resources engineer in a consulting firm in California, USA.  Randall’s background and interest is in modeling coupled human-natural systems, and along with degrees in International Agriculture Development and Civil Engineering (Water Resources), he holds a PhD in Biological Systems Engineering from the University of California-Davis.  He spent 3 years in Laos conducting his graduate research with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) focused on improving water management within rice landscapes of upland Laos.  His role with ILRI will be to conduct integrated household-level modeling under diverse geographies and agroecologies under the Humidtropics CRP, in order to identify potential entry points for interventions.