Akhter Ahmed is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit and the Country Representative for IFPRI in Bangladesh. He is also the Chief of Party of the Feed the Future Bangladesh Research Activity. His research focuses on strategies for agricultural and rural development, social protection, and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and the undernutrition of the poor in developing countries. He worked on poverty and human development issues in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Malawi, the Philippines, and Turkey. Before joining IFPRI, Ahmed worked with the World Bank and served as an Agricultural Economist for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He received a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Colorado State University and a master’s in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University.