Adam Willman

I was born and raised in the US state of Iowa surrounded by fields of maize, soybeans and hay. This environment triggered my interests in conservation and agriculture. I earned two BSc degrees at Iowa State University—one in Agronomy and another in Global Resource Systems with a minor in Horticulture. During this time I also interned with several international agriculture businesses and research centres including Cargill, Inc., DuPont Pioneer and CIMMYT. While I found the technical natural science aspects of agriculture interesting, I knew something was missing from my understanding of the global agricultural production network. That feeling is the reason I came to SOAS to earn my MSc in Research for International Development. The modules in my degree programme gave me the tools to critique various issues in agricultural production. I applied for my current PhD project in the last couple of months of my MSc programme. This project, 'Farmer's decision-making process: lessons learnt from rural farming communities in Ethiopia & Kenya', is allowing me to combine the technical aspects of my undergraduate degrees with the social science aspects of my MSc by deploying an interdisciplinary methodology and engaging with several different disciplines.

• Agriculture
• Agroecology
• Agrarian Change
• Political Ecology