President 1997 - 2003

Dr Nigel Poulter
c/o 65 The Quarries
Boughton Monchelsea
Maidstone
Kent ME17 4NJ
United Kingdom

Tel/Fax: +44-1622-743266
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Dr Poulter was a Programme Leader for the Crop Post Harvest Research Programme supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) until 1998 and was based with NR International at Chatham Maritime in Kent, UK. This Programme supported numerous tropical root crops research projects around the world and forged global links with national and international root crops programmes. Dr Poulter is now a freelance food consultant whilst remaining an enthusiastic devotee of tropical root crops as a means to the alleviation of poverty and improved household and community food security.

Dr Poulter was elected as President of the ISTRC in 2000 having previously filled the roles of Councillor Publications and Vice-President (Fund Raising) since 1995.

Regional Councillor Africa 1991 - 2003

Dr John Otoo
Director
Crops Research Institute
PO Box 3785
Kumasi
Ghana
Tel: +233-51-60389/60395/60396
Fax: +233-51-60142/60396
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Dr Otoo is currently Director of the Crops Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Ghana, West Africa. Before appointment as Director, he was the National Coordinator of the National Root and Tuber Research Programme. Dr Otoo has nine years of previous experience working with IITA's Root and Tuber Improvement Programme. Dr Otoo has conducted research on cassava, yam, sweet potato and cocoyam as well as other crops such as maize, cotton, soyabean and tobacco.

Dr Otoo has served ISTRC as the Councillor for the Africa Region since 1991. He has also acted as the secretary of the ISTRC-Africa Branch from 1986 to 1992.

Regional Councillor East Asia 2000 - 2003

Dr Katsumi Komaki
Director of Research Assessment
Council for Science and Technology Policy
1-1-15 Nishi-Shinbashi
Minato Ward, Tokyo 105-0003
Japan
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Dr Komaki is currently Director of Research Assessment at the Council for Science and Technology Policy in Japan. His previous positions have included Senior Research Coordinator at the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council in Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Head, Sweet potato Breeding Lab. National Agriculture Research Center, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. He has been a Visiting Scientist at the University of Florida. He has extensive experience and published widely on the subject of sweet potato breeding.

Secretary/Treasurer 1984 - 2012

Associate Director of the George Washington Carver Agricultural Experiment Station
Tuskegee University
USA
Tel: +1–334-727-8333
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Web: www.tuskegee.edu

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Plant Disease Management, Plant Breeding and Genetics, Integrated Pest Management, International Agriculture and Development, Small Farm Research, Space Agriculture, Agricultural Research Program Management and Administration.

Development of disease and pest resistant cultivars and applications of integrated pest management strategies for the management and control of diseases and pests of crop plants. Development of adaptable small farm production systems through on farm research. Development of crop production systems for space applications.

Councillor for West Africa 2003 - 2012

Professor Malachy O. Akoroda
Department of Agronomy
Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Tel: +33 4.67615962
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A 'student' of tropical root and tuber crops. ISTRC Councillor for West Africa. A breeder and seed producer by training and has been involved in various development of systems analysis, priority setting, and business concerns for commercialisation of root and tuber crops across countries of SSA in last 30 years. In practice, he is interested in holistic discourse of profitable and viable rural development programs based on seed systems that engender stable and sustainable livelihoods arising from cost-efficient crop production chains. He teaches agrometeorology, plant breeding, seed production, agricultural statistics and experimentation and root and tuber crops agronomy.

Councillor Past President 2003 – 2012

Professor Andrew Westby
Natural Resources Institute
University of Greenwich
Central Avenue
Chatham Maritime
Kent
ME4 4TB
United Kingdom
Tel: +44-1634-883478
Fax: +44-1634-883714
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Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/NaturalResourcesInstitute

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Professor Andrew Westby was President of the ISTRC 2003 to 2012. He is a Professor of Food Technology and Director the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich. A post-harvest technologist with 19 years post-doctoral experience working mainly, though not exclusively, with root and tuber crops on a wide range of issues concerned with handling, processing, marketing, food quality and food safety. Field experience in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
Andrew was Councillor for Publications from 2000-2003.

Councillor for East and Southern Africa 2009 -2012

Dr Gorrettie Ssemakula
Head Sweet potato Program
National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI)
P.O. Box 7084, Kampala
Tel: +256 414 573016
Fax: +256 414 286 947
Skype: Gorrettie Ssemakula
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Web: www.naro.org

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Dr Gorrettie Ssemakula is Councillor for East and Southern Africa. She has more than ten years experience in cassava improvement: conducted research on cassava breeding for the Uganda National Program, the East African Root Crops Research Network, and the International Institute of Tropical agriculture. Through the East African Root Crops Research Network, she backstopped National cassava–breeding programs of East Africa in hands on training leading to harmonized and effective cassava breeding methodologies in the region. She has also supervised and mentored post-graduate students and Industrial trainees who have graduated with excellent grades. Currently she heads the Uganda National sweet potato research team.

Vice President Fund Raising 2012-2016

Dr Maria Isabel Andrade
Sweet potato Breeder & Seed Systems Specialist
CIP-SSA
IIAM Av. FPLM 2698. PO.Box 2100
Maputo-Mozambique
Tel/Fax. +258 21 461 610, Cell. +258 823065460
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Maria Andrade has over 28 years of working experience in Africa with root crops. She initiated the root and tuber crops program in Cape Verde Islands in 1984. She did her BSc (Agronomy). Master (Plant Genetics) & PhD (plant breeding with minor in Plant Physiology) in the University of Arizona & North Carolina State University. Before joining FAO in 1994, she was leader of the Cape Verdean root and tuber program at the National Research institute. From 1996-2001 she worked as IITA’s Regional agronomist for the Southern Africa Root Crops Research Network (SARRNET), providing overall technical support on plant breeding and agronomy, within the context of improving the productivity of cassava and sweet potato in Southern Africa.  From 2002-2006 she coordinated a 5 year project on Accelerated Multiplication and Distribution of cassava & sweet potato.  Over 1 million farmers received improved planting material in two third of Mozambique. Since 2006, she has worked for CIP focused on breeding orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) for drought tolerance, designing promotional materials and backstopping seed systems work in Southern Africa. Other significant achievements by Maria Andrade include the strengthening of human and infrastructure capacity of NARES (National Agricultural Research and Extension Services) and private sector for sweet potato research and development, the empowerment of farmers in quality sweet potato production, the successful introduction, testing, and promotion of technologies. She works closely with other CGIAR scientists in the region to capitalize on potential synergies to be gained from joint planning and spearheads the Sweet potato Support Platform for Southern Africa under SASHA (Sweet potato Action for Health in Africa) project. She also serves as CIP’s country liaison scientist with the Government of Mozambique. Under the USAID-funded Platform for Agricultural Research and Innovation in Mozambique (PIAIT), she serves as the representative for all CGIAR centres working in the country (ILRI, IFPRI, IRRI, IWMI, IITA, ICRISAT and CIP).

Councillor for South and Southeast Asia 2006-2016

Dr. S.K. Chakrabarti
Director
Central Tuber Crops Research Institute
(Indian Council of Agricultural Research)
Sreekariyam, Thiruvananthapuram - 695017
Kerala, India
Tel: (0091)471-2598551-54
Fax : (0091)471-2590063
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Website: www.ctcri.org

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Dr S K Chakrabari is the Director of the Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He is an expert is plant pathology, plant biotechnology and genomics. He has over 30 years experience in research throughout Asia, USA and Europe. He has over 140 research publications. Through networks in Asia and the USA he led initiatives in Agricultural Biotechnology Support Projects, Potato Genome Sequencing, and Indo-European Science Collaboration (NewIndigo).

Regional Councillor South Pacific

Late Professor Satish Chandra
3 Spowers Circuit,
Holder, Canberra, ACT, Australia, 2611.
Tel: +61-2-62885704
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Late Professor Satish Chandra is the Councillor South Pacific and a Life Member of the ISTRC. He is a Visiting Professor of Tropical Agriculture at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, London. Professor Chandra has had over 45 years experience in tropical root crops with specialisation in research and development, including agronomy, production systems, product utilisation, and in the ability of tropical root crops to contribute to human nutrition, poverty alleviation and raising farm and enterprise incomes.

Councillor for Publications 2012-2016

Richardson Okechukwu
International Institute for Tropical Agriculture
Ibadan
Nigeria
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Station Tel.: +234 2 7517472, (0)8039784000, (0)8055055954, (0)8034035281, (0)8034035282, (0)8034035283

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Project Coordinator, Cassava Transformation Project

Regional Councillor South America

Dr Clair Hershey
CIAT
Columbia
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Dr Clair Hershey is a plant breeder and served as cassava breeder at CIAT for 13 years. He developed a comprehensive program that included management of the field germplasm collection, pre-breeding to extract new traits of value from the genebank, and selection with national program partners in Latin America and Asia. The program emphasized pest and disease resistance, high stable yields, good quality, and adaptation in difficult soil and climate environments, where most cassava is produced by small land-holders. The germplasm derived from this program continues to expand in area planted by farmers and as a resource for other breeders.

Clair spent 15 years managing a diversified family farm with his brothers in the US, before joining FAO in 2009 and 2010 as a plant breeder in the Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB). Since 2001 he has been editor of Plant Breeding News, a widely read electronic newsletter of applied plant breeding.