Meagan Keefe joined IFPRI as a Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellow through the Congressional Hunger Center in July of 2007. Through her fellowship, she worked for the Development Strategy and Governance Division in IFPRI’s regional office in San Jose, Costa Rica for a year and then moved to Washington, DC to work in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division for the second year of the fellowship. She now coordinates the Ghana Strategy Support Program for DSGD.

Meagan holds an M.S. degree in Natural Resources Science and Management from the University of Minnesota where she focused on the use of markets to achieve conservation goals while improving livelihoods. As part of her master’s thesis, she worked with the Rainforest Alliance in Guatemala and Mexico to coordinate the export of palm fronds and the management of the local cooperatives harvesting the palms. Prior to graduate school, she served as a natural resources Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, where she worked with communities surrounding a national park in order to promote environmental education and improve resource management. Meagan also holds a B.A. in Economics from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.