Dr. Jenn Williamson leads a team of advisors in developing and implementing ACDI/VOCA’s organizational policy and strategy to promote gender equality and the inclusion of systemically excluded groups who may be at risk due to social factors, such as age, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ethnic, or racial identity. Dr. Williamson also serves as the gender and agriculture systems advisor (deputy chief of party level) for the Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) program, funded by the USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security. She previously led the women’s economic empowerment learning track under the USAID-funded Leveraging Economic Opportunities project. Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA in 2015, Jenn was global technical advisor at Counterpart International. She holds a BA in English and studies in women and gender from the University of Virginia and an MA and PhD in English with a research concentration in gender, race, class, and intersectionality from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Katie Cheney is a Senior Gender and Inclusive Development Specialist with EnCompass LLC, supporting a range of gender and social inclusion projects across the agriculture, health, and governance sectors. Katie serves as a Team Lead on multiple activities under the USAID Feed the Future Advancing Women's Empowerment (AWE) Program, where she is leading a team to develop the Toolkit to Address Gender-based Violence in Agriculture and Market Systems Development, including pilot testing and development of an accompanying resource list and compendium for agriculture implementers. Katie also serves as Team Lead for conducting an evidence scan and developing integration and measurement resources for promoting women’s decision-making in agriculture with USAID and its implementing partners. With EnCompass, Katie also supports the gender, youth, and social inclusion component of a maternal and child health activity in Uganda, and the gender and social inclusion work on an anti-corruption activity in Armenia. With field experience in Botswana, Panama, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic, Ms. Cheney has supported over a dozen USAID contracts and subcontracts throughout her career, across the sectors of gender, MEL, agriculture, education, health, and governance. Ms. Cheney holds an M.S. in International Development from Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development and a B.A. from Penn State University, where she majored in Anthropology and minored in Women’s Studies and Religious Studies.

Annet is a Gender and Social Inclusion Advisor at Feed the Future Inclusive Agricultural Markets (FtF IAM) in Uganda. She leads the program gender and social inclusion efforts through MSD approach to place women, youth, and other marginalized groups at the heart of business models. She engages in the development, piloting and adaptation of the GEYSI tools including the scorecard and framework and has led over 45 periodic assessments of partnerships using this scorecard. She further led the development and operationalization of the FtF IAM GEYSI action plan and manual. She has in the past 12 months led the piloting of the Feed the Future Advancement of Women Empowerment GBV tool kit in the program from identification, prevention and mitigation of GBV in agricultural market systems. 

She is a seasoned equality and social inclusion specialist with experience in providing technical assistance, staff and partner trainings, mainstreaming gender equality into agricultural market systems development, livelihood programming, economic strengthening programs, food security projects, water and sanitation and health programs funded by USAID. She is passionate about equality and has a strong background in the designing and implementation of women and youth economic empowerment programs.