Keefe headshot

Leland Fellow

Meagan Keefe

4th Class, 2007-2009

Field Placement: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), San Jose, Costa Rica

At IFPRI’s Latin American regional office, Meagan worked on a project to study how to improve the livelihoods of poor households in rural areas by improving the provision of services that are essential for agricultural and rural development. The research project was carried out by IFPRI and local collaborators around the world with case studies in Uganda, India, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Guatemala. Meagan worked with Guatemala-based partner Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences to conduct the quantitative analysis of rural service provision using household survey data, organized regional workshops for local stakeholders in Guatemala, and selected sites for case studies that were then carried out by doctoral students collaborating on the project.

Policy Placement: International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC

Meagan worked in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division of IFPRI, where she was involved in a research project that looked at food price transmission and assessed the impacts of increased global food prices on the poor in twelve Latin American countries. In addition, she worked on a project that sought to increase agricultural productivity, incomes, and sustainable management of land and water by small farmers in the rural Sierra region of Peru: a team from IFPRI worked with collaborators from Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo in Peru and Wageningen University investigated the factors affecting the adoption of sustainable land and water management technologies and their impacts in the Jequetepeque watershed of northern Peru.

Pre-Fellowship Education/Experience:

Meagan has a Master’s Degree in Natural Resources Science and Management from the University of Minnesota. She focused on forestry, sustainable agriculture, and the use of markets to achieve conservation goals while improving livelihoods. As part of her master’s thesis, she worked with the Rainforest Alliance in the Peten, Guatemala and Pronatura in Chiapas, Mexico to help coordinate the export of palm fronds as well as the management of the local organizations harvesting the palms. Prior to graduate school, she served as a natural resources Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, where she worked with communities surrounding a national park in order to promote environmental education and improve resource management. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and is originally from Chicago, Illinois.