- Was Team Leader for a Mid-term Review of the FAO Dhaka Food Security Project funded by the Dutch Feb-April 2021
- Received the 2014 International Service Award from the American Society of Agronomy for distinguished work internationally.
- Was an Adjunct Full Professor with Cornell University from 1998-2008, working with them in Bangladesh on various ag research under their USAID Soil Mgmt-CRSP on Ca deficiency induced rickets, soil solarization especially with vegetable and tree nursery growers in Bangladesh
- Able to jump starting an FAO (IFAD funded) project, Smallholder Agricultural Competitiveness Project, providing 4 GOB components with Technical Assistance.
- Led FAO Bangladesh Hand In Hand program
- I had been working for the International Food Policy Research Institute as a Senior Research Fellow for a few years until March 2019.
- Had been operating a $10.2 million dollar a year budget and managing 170 staff with WorldFish Bangladesh for applied research in development whereby exhibiting tremendous research and development impacts among the poor
- Worked with International Water Management Institute on their CGIAR Research Program, Water Land and Ecosystems as the Ganges Basin Research Coordinator coordinating 5 major projects
- Facilitated four mega-research projects with ACIAR in Cambodia on rice germplasm (with IRRI), rice establishment (with NSW I&I Australia), on-farm water mgmt. (with CSIRO Australia), and horticultural value chain (with NSW I&I Australia)
- Screened hundreds of new IRRI elite germplasm lines for drought tolerance and submergence tolerance—two constraining factors for non-irrigated wet season rice varieties-- in collaboration with IRRI and the Cambodian Agriculture Research and Development Institute (CARDI). A MAS lab was inaugurated at CARDI last year to do analysis for aroma now that such markers exist making screening for the correct aroma genes possible.
- Developed a focused, three-hour training with one-page, one concept training materials on soil fertility/plant nutrition, herbicide use, and seed storage for model or lead Cambodian rice households. From April-June 2011-12, over 6,000 HH were trained with over 60% of trainees changing their fertilizer use and increasing their rice yields from 15-25%. In addition, model growers influence an average of 10 other neighbors who watch their innovations/changes, resulting in 15,000 grower households impacted by the training.
- Used drama and comedy DVDs produced locally with famous Cambodian actors and actresses to educate over 1 million farmers on the proper use of fertilizer, changing their perception and knowledge of chemical fertilizers to more of “added nutrients”.
- Manage annual Cambodian Agric Research Fund (CARF) for Cambodian researchers. Around 12 projects per year funded for 3 years and began in 2000. Currently it is the CARF-10th round.
- Advised agri-businesses and investment firms like Morgan Stanley to place them in the position of investing in agriculture in Ukraine, Peru, and South Asia.
- Demonstrated that in areas that are unsuited to boro (winter) rice production, wheat and maize production are the most profitable alternative from the farmers’ point of view and frequently represent an efficient use of domestic resources. As supporting Co-Facilitator with the Rice-Wheat Consortium, our team efforts won the 2004 CGIAR King Baudouin Award.
- Researched, developed, and implemented sustainable rice-wheat systems in South Asia though a holistic approach toward improved system varieties, crop diversification, zero or minimum tillage, improved irrigation and fertilizer efficiency with an overall focus on better nutrition for communities.
- Improved wheat and maize crop yield in Bangladesh by implementing research that showed that permanent raised beds produced an 18% higher wheat yield and reduced irrigation water requirement by 32% relative to wheat grown on flat beds. Introduced hybrid maize to local growers increasing yields 400%. Most maize grown in Bangladesh is now hybrid.
- Developed a “stakeholder partnership” between scientists, NGOs, farmers, and Chinese manufacturers of handheld power-tillers to introduce such equipment to Bangladeshi growers in participatory ways so that all parties learned the benefits and problems of the use of such equipment in the Bangladesh context. After leaving for 7 years, this program expanded greatly.
- Developed conservation agriculture (i.e., minimum tillage) in Bangladesh and Pakistan as Project Coordinator CIMMYT’s MTP Frontier Project 7, which was elevated to the Global Project 9: “Conservation Agriculture.”
- Investigated the impact of arsenic in the food chain and proposed solutions to mitigate arsenic uptake in major cropping systems, thereby managing arsenic contamination from the environment and food chain with technologies that are affordable and sustainable for poor growers.
- Confirmed that the etiology of rickets (~9% prevalent in SE Bangladesh) is calcium deficiency. Improved food delivery system to alleviate rickets disease caused by calcium deficiency. Designed programs in agriculture and nutrition to educate communities affected by rickets on the causes of rickets, as well as ways to ensure that the communities could augment their daily intake of calcium in their diets.
- Worked to introduce a transgenic papaya that is resistant to the Papaya Ring Spot Virus, as was successfully done to save the papaya industry in Hawaii.
- Developed and promulgated whole family training methodology in Bangladesh and Cambodia which is being adopted by extension, NGOs, and government programs.
- Developed Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) for soil moisture measurement under greenhouse use and disproved 50 years of literature that peanuts do not exhibit root hairs.