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Alex Winter-Nelson

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Food and Agriculture

Council expert Alex Winter-Nelson

About Alex Winter-Nelson

Alex Winter-Nelson is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of global food and agriculture at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, with expertise in Africa. He is currently a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He also serves as Director College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental Science’s Office of International Programs which houses the International Food Security at Illinois (IFSI) program.

Winter-Nelson earned his doctorate in applied economics at Stanford University’s Food Research Institute. His research has been motivated by a desire to understand the relationship between development interventions and poverty or food security in developing countries. Most of this research has related to Eastern and Southern Africa, with some work in other regions. Currently, Winter-Nelson is involved in ongoing research in Zambia to evaluate the impact of livestock development on poverty and malnutrition among smallholders. His work in Africa was reinforced through visiting appointments at Egerton University in Kenya and at The University of Pretoria in South Africa as well as through consulting work for the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, and other international agencies. The work has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development, the United States Department of Agriculture, and Elanco Animal Health, among other sponsors. He's authored dozens of scholarly papers which have appeared in academic journals and books. His book, The Atlas of World Hunger, was the winner of the 2011 James M. Blaut Innovative Publication Award from the Association of American Geographers.