Ed Mabaya named director of Cornell’s Humphrey Program

Ed Mabaya, MS ’98, Ph.D. ’03 has been named director of Cornell’s Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, a premier training program for mid-career professionals from developing and emerging economies in areas of agriculture, rural development and natural resource management.

Mabaya, a research professor in the Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is a globally recognized scholar and development practitioner with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. His applied research revolves around food marketing and distribution, seed systems, digital agriculture, enabling environments for agribusiness and the role of efficient agricultural markets in Africa’s economic development. Mabaya succeeds Peter Gregory, who is retiring after serving as director for the past 10 years. Mabaya takes over the director position July 1.

“I am excited to take on this new position that supports capacity development for professionals from developing and emerging economies,” Mabaya said. “I am a product of such investment having come from Zimbabwe to Cornell for graduate studies in the mid-1990s. I look forward to working with Fellows to enrich their experiences in the USA while sharing their global expertise with faculty and students at Cornell.”