Robert Bertram
The chief scientist for the nation’s efforts to solve global hunger and food insecurity will present a lecture, “The End of Hunger: from Vision to Reality,” in Auburn Thursday, March 31, at 4 p.m. in the Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center auditorium.
Robert Bertram’s presentation, sponsored by the E.T. York Distinguished Lecturer Series in Auburn’s College of Agriculture, is free and open to the community.
In his role as the top researcher for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Food Security, Bertram leads the agency’s science-based efforts to advance research, technology and food security in support of the government’s “Feed the Future” initiative. He also serves as a key adviser on a range of technical and program issues to advance global food security and nutrition.
Before assuming his current role in 2014, Bertram was director of the bureau’s Office of Agricultural Research and Policy, which leads implementation of the Feed the Future research strategy as well as related efforts to scale innovations in global food security. In past positions, he guided the international development agency’s investments in agriculture and natural resources research and served with USDA’s international programs.
Bertram has an academic background in plant breeding and genetics, including degrees from the University of Minnesota, the University of Maryland and the University of California, Davis. He has been especially active in plant genetic resources policy as it relates to research for development, including applications of biotechnology in food security-related research.
The E.T. York lecture series was established in the College of Agriculture in 1981 by a gift from E.T. York, now deceased, and his wife, Vam Cardwell York. York was an Auburn agronomy and soils alumnus who directed what is now the Alabama Cooperative Extension System for two years before being appointed administrator of the federal Extension service. In the following years, he served as interim president of the University of Florida and, later, as chancellor of the State University System of Florida.
For more information on Bertram’s March 31 lecture in Auburn, contact Megan Ross at 334-844-3201 or mhr0001@auburn.edu.
