OUR TEAM
AMANDA CRUMP
Assistant Professor, Research Group Leader
Amanda teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the theory and practice of international agricultural development. Her research is focused on gender equity in international agricultural extension education.
STUDENTS
Ana Zepeda
Ph.D. Student (Geography)
Ana was born and raised in Chico, California to Mexican immigrants. Ana attended California State University, Chico where she double majored in Agricultural business and Latin American Studies. During this time, she studied abroad in Brazil and then began working as an Agricultural Research Assistant at the Center for Economic Development at Chico State, where she continued to work after graduation. In 2018 she started her Master’s degree in International Agricultural Development at UC Davis. Her thesis was focused on urban agriculture and the women who take part in it in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Ana is now a geography PhD student at UC Davis. Her research interests lie at the intersection between women and agriculture, climate change, and natural disasters. Ana is also interested in the experiences and roles of minority women: Latinas, Black women, Indigenous women, women in the developing world, and low-income women in our food system.
When she is not working or studying Ana enjoys, spending time with her dog Rio, embroidering, watercolor painting, and running.
Twitter: @AnaMZepeda95
Tatiana Sierra
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Ph.D. Student (Geography)
Community Development Graduate Group
GTU Nu Iota Member
Farm Foundation Ag Scholar
My research currently focuses on the impacts of wildfires on local food systems.
Areas of interest: natural disasters, local level food systems, short-term migration/evacuation, displacement, geomorphology, forestry
When I’m not working on research I’m probably talking about Supernatural or my dog.
Bob Woodke
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Ph.D. Student (Geography)
Heyo! The names Robert Woodke, and I am a PHD student in Geography, and a masters student in Community Regional Development. I am interested in climate resiliency in pastoral populations in the Sahel region, as well as culturally relevant and sustainable development solutions that would enable these peoples to continue their way of life. I like woodworking, sailing and medium level walks on the beach, weather permitting. I have been known from time to time to cut a rug, but only professionally.
Sarai Acosta
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M.S. Student (International Agricultural Development)
Buenas, me llamo Sarai Lillian Acosta!
I am a Panamanian American graduate student in International Agricultural Development. As a first generation college graduate and former transfer student from Santa Rosa Junior College, I am proud to say that I am the first in my family to have a bachelors in science. My degree is in Global Disease Biology with minors in Medical Entomology and Wildlife Fish & Conservation Biology from the University of California Davis. I have experience in biological bench work, food safety, agricultural extension, and medicine. I started my career interested in medicine and epidemiology, but through my studies I have discovered a passion for advocacy and community empowerment. My most commonly used phrase is "I don't know" and I aspire to learn as much as I can both in an academic setting and an informal setting. I believe in learning through experiences and am always up for a challenge and cultural immersion.
I am a volunteer at Empower Yolo and a student ambassador for the UC Global Health Institute in Women's Health, Gender and Empowerment. I believe in personal and meaningful discourse focused around inclusivity and learned experiences. I don't like to be conventional and believe in freedom of expression, even if the topic is difficult. If you ask me what my career goals are I will most likely say "I don't know", but I do like the freedom that comes with uncertainty.
Lena Pransky
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M.S. Student (International Agricultural Development)
Lena is originally from the Boston area, and graduated from Macalester College with a major in Latin American Studies and minors in Economics, Political Science and Portuguese. After five years working with immigrant rights organizations, she began her studies interested in the root causes of undocumented migration to the United States, and quickly learned how interlinked these issues are with the shortcomings of global agricultural and food systems. To learn more about these agrifood systems and their impact on vulnerable populations, she researched agricultural practices in Cuba and Puerto Rico, interned along the US/Mexico border, completed a semester of agricultural economics at a Brazilian university, and worked with the ecological branch of Argentina’s National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA). For the past four years, Lena worked at a Minnesota-based food bank, running several projects including connecting immigrant families with food benefits, piloting child hunger intervention programming, and providing capacity-building support to hunger relief agencies in the Twin Cities.
Lena is interested in Participatory Action Research and community-driven efforts to promote land sovereignty, sustainable agriculture and food access, particularly in Latin America. She hopes to further explore the intersection between migration and agriculture, along with how to integrate data tools like GIS. In her free time, Lena enjoys biking, hiking, working on music projects and learning new languages. Lena's CV
Isha Poudel
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M.S. Student (International Agricultural Development)
I am from Nepal, the country of hills and mountains. I lived in a rural village for four years while doing Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture Science and developed a keen interest towards community development. I worked in the agriculture projects with youth and women from grassroots organizations during my time at the university.
I’ve also led an NGO and mentored youth from diverse backgrounds in the field of agriculture project management. My research interests include gender, agriculture, community and technology. I did my thesis in undergrad to understand the agriculture workload between men and women in one of the highly hit earthquake communities in Nepal. My 11 days solo trip during the research further
enhanced my interest in studying farming communities and the intricate relationship of gender with agriculture. I worked in the Piloting Project of Chimney Solar Dryer in rural Nepal in a Seminar Abroad Program from UC Davis.
I’ve also co-authored a course book, ‘Social mobilization and Community Development’ with my professor from previous university. I am interested to study, research and learn about the relationship between agriculture and gender. Ten years down the line, I hope to gather pertinent knowledge and skill to be the bridge between the agriculture technologies and the rural communities in Nepal.
Marina Vergara
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M.S. (International Agricultural Development)
Marina Vergara is from Croton-on-Hudson, a small town outside of New York City. After graduating from Cornell University with a BS in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences, Marina moved to Panama to serve with the US Peace Corps as an Agriculture Extension Agent, working with small-scale cacao farmers in product development, marketing, and sales. In this role, she learned more about agroforestry and the cultural importance of cacao, as well as the challenges farmers faced in accessing information and markets for their products.
Marina’s research interests broadly are in extension, food sovereignty, sustainable supply chains, and cacao. She hopes to better support producers by furthering the accessibility of information from the research and academic side to the farmer and producer side. In her program, she hopes to focus her research on supporting small scale cacao farmers, explore the impacts of sustainable supply chain models that already exist, and examine extension and development projects in the US and abroad.
In her free time, you can find Marina outside hiking, biking, or lounging with her dog Claudia, at the local coffee shop with a good book, or trying something new and tasty to eat.
Allison Rose
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B.S. (International Agricultural Development)
Allison Rose is an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis studying International Agricultural Development. She has a particular interest in the intersection between cooking, agriculture, and community development. She is also interested in sustainable agriculture systems, environmental justice, food justice, and agriculture education. In her free time, Allison loves to cook, bake, read, exercise, and spend time with loved ones.
Xiwen Zhang
Hi, I’m Xiwen Zhang, I come from Yunnan, China. My research interests are broadly focused on regional studies in China and Southeast Asia, political-economic development, political ecology, human rights, agri-food financialization, rural sociology, and the digital platform economy. I'm especially interested in the political-economic and socio-cultural dimensions of human-environment interactions through the lens of global south feminism. Currently, my study aims to investigate the social and environmental implications of financialization and digitalization processes in Puer tea plantations in combination with coercive state and provincial ecological civilization policies in my hometown of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan.
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Check out my website here!
ARCHIE JARMAN
M.S. International Agricultural Development
Archie Jarman has over a decade of international development experience in a variety of fields. He is the co-founder of a non-profit supporting low-income fruit and vegetable vendors and their children in Ecuador. He worked in Myanmar implementing a malaria suppression and de-worming campaign in the Keng Tung valley and designed English curricula for students in Lashio. Archie was a program manager or officer for approximately seven years in projects offering solutions for challenges faced by rice, wheat, and horticulture farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central America with Arcadia Biosciences Inc and the Feed the Future Horticulture Innovation Lab. Archie received a master’s degree from Columbia University in International Social Welfare policy where he focused on the impact of international conditional cash transfer programs and their impact on child nutrition. Currently, Archie is a master’s candidate in University of California, Davis’ International Agricultural Development program where he is pursuing his interest in training programs and their impact on technology adoption for smallholder farmers and is a graduate student researcher for Dr. Beth Mitcham.