Nicole Lefore
With over 30 years of lived experience in research for development, policy advocacy and project implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Dr. Lefore is currently the Associate Director for Sustainable Agriculture Water Management at the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska and the Director of the Innovation Lab for Irrigation and Mechanization Systems. She has worked with worked with policy think tanks, the CGIAR, and was the Director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation. Her focus is on smallholder land and water management in agriculture, irrigation market systems and finance, and governance, gender and equity. Her commitment to smallholder farmers globally is rooted in her family’s farm in Oregon. She completed a PhD in Government at the University of Virginia and MSc in Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies.
