In recent months, we have had five new additions to The Centre for Global Food and Resources (GFAR). This includes a mix of staff and students, who introduce themselves below.
Elizabeth Gunner BA, Marketing Director and Owner, Richard Gunner’s Fine Meats (Agribusiness Management Consultant, Centre for Global Food and Resources). Elizabeth has worked in private enterprise and the public sectors, primarily in agribusiness, with an emphasis on strategic marketing. She has worked for a major national agribusiness corporation, a significant Australian winery and a renowned dairy company, along with running a sheep and cattle grazing property. Her current other significant role is as the owner of Richard Gunner’s Fine Meats, which is a ‘paddock to plate’ meat business with seven retail stores and supplying 300 Australian restaurants with high-end branded meat products. She is also a major shareholder in Something Wild Australia, one of Australia’s only Indigenous-owned food businesses focused on sourcing the extraordinary native produce Australia has to offer to supply restaurants around the country. Elizabeth has also worked in the public sector on domestic and international industry value chain development projects, most notably in Indonesia. At the Centre for Global Food and Resources Elizabeth brings her extensive industry experience in agribusiness marketing and business development as an expert consultant and engages actively with the research and student cohort. Elizabeth is also a member of the Centre’s Agribusiness Advisory Board.
Dr Xinjian Chen (Jansen) – Xinjian is a Visiting Scholar from Guangxi University (China) who joined GFAR in November 2017. He presided nearly ten research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Education Ministry of China, Government of Guangdong and Guangxi province. Xinjian’s research interests are: small farmers’ risk preference and production behaviours; food policy, food security and food value chains; agricultural insurance and agricultural risk management; and poverty alleviation and rural development in China.
Dr Carine Saison MSc (Agronomy and Environment, INPL Nancy, France), PhD (Soil Science, INPL, France). Carine joined GFAR in January 2018 and her research is focussed on bundled ecosystem service provision on private land. She has a particular interest in conservation auctions for biodiversity, farm productivity and carbon sequestration. In 2012, Carine started working with the O’Connor NRM group to work on market-based instruments for biodiversity conservation projects.
Prior to arriving in Australia, Carine was a researcher in Montpellier in France, at IRD (Research Institute for Developing countries). Her research was focussed on the contamination of soil and water resources with pesticides in agricultural areas in a wide range of regions: French West Indies, Bolivia, Brazil and the Mediterranean regions.
Alfinura Sharafeyeva has a Bachelor of Agronomy from Kazakh National Agrarian University, Master of Agriculture from the University of Sydney. After receiving the master’s degree Alfinura worked for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in Rome for nearly 4 years. The main area of expertise covers various aspects of the agricultural trade policies in the post-Soviet countries. Joined the GFAR team in November 2017 holding the Beacon of Enlightenment scholarship of the University of Adelaide. Current thesis title: The effectiveness of agricultural policies in emerging economies in the light of trade liberalization: the case of Kazakhstan.
Leila Forouhar is a PhD Candidate in Water Resources Engineering and Management in School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran. She is working on “Developing a Market-based Methodology for Adaptive Water Allocation and Improving Water Productivity in Low Flow Conditions” as her PhD thesis. She is now a visiting student at GFAR. Because of the historically well-known water market experiences in Australia, Leila has chosen this country as her research host institution. She believes that this opportunity will help her to enrich the content of her PhD thesis, especially the economic parts.
Silvia Santato is a researcher at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC), division ‘Risk assessment and adaptation strategies’ since 2013 and she is a PhD candidate in Science and Management of Climate Change at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice with a thesis on sustainable management of water resources. Silvia is an expert in water regulation and management and related climate change adaptation options. She is currently involved as a scientific project manager of H2020 CLARA and recently with Climate-KIC pathfinder projects (COST-ADAPT and PLACES). Silvia is the thematic expert in Disaster Risk Reduction of the Climate-ADAPT platform of the European Environment Agency. She coordinated Summer Schools and workshops on adaptation, water management, floods and droughts in Sudan, Algeria and Italy. Silvia contributed to the Climate Change Adaptation Plan of Italy and she is one of the founder member of the Venice Climate Lab, a laboratory promoting initiatives at the intersection of art and science.
Fentahun Addis Abebe – I am a PhD student at the Centre for Global Food and Resources, the University of Adelaide. I have received my BA degree in Economics (2011) and Master degree in Economic Policy Analysis (2014) from Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. My research interests are in the area of impact evaluation analysis, valuation of environmental and natural resources, efficiency analysis, health economics and food policy. My thesis topic is The Impact of Agricultural Innovation Platforms on Irrigation Farm Household Outcomes in Africa.
