Former Assistant Administrator, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Emmy Simmons is an independent consultant on international development issues, focusing on food, agriculture, Africa, and sustainability issues. She is currently a member of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition and a non-resident senior adviser for the Food Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In addition to serving on the Independent Steering Committee for the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, she serves on the board of SNV USA. Over the last several years, she has been the co-chair of AGree, a US-based initiative to reform food and agriculture policy; a member of the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability at the National Academies of Science; and a member of the boards of the International Livestock Research Institute, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, and the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC). She completed a career of nearly 30 years with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2005 and served as the Assistant Administrator for USAID's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade prior to retirement. She also worked in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs in Liberia and taught and conducted research at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. She holds an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
