nohemi voglozin

Contributed to managing donor relationship and corporate social responsibility for the Walmart Foundation $1.4M funded EARN (Empowered Africans for Retail Needs) program in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. Revitalized and managed Customer Relationship Management application Salesforce; increasing by 80% productivity in lead conversion. Identified, analyzed and monitored a pipeline of over $90M of foundation, corporate and government funding opportunities. Intervened at a leadership position in the determination of the viability of new initiatives and the design of programs and campaigns, leading to several proposal and grants writing instances such as the successful submission of a $50M proposal for the Food for Progress Program, for solutions promoting acceptance of mobile payments by merchants, for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Round 15, and the exploration of training of African workforce to digital jobs in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation.

* Wrote proposal and received the Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (LEAP) Fellowship ($19,900) to fully fund doctoral research projects and ethno-graphic surveys. * Led team of 12 direct reports including 8 interviewers, 2 project managers, 1 communication officer and 1 security officer, resulting in the efficient collection of socio-economic and agro-ecological data from 300 rice growing farmers in Beninese agricultural regions. * Designed and conducted experiments, growing more than 400 rice seeds varieties in the greenhouse at UMBC, realizing the first-ever culture of African seeds at UMBC. * Produced maps using ESRI ArcGIS to identify hot-spots of diversity for conservation, develop a base-line understanding of rice genetic resources and areas for conservation in Benin, leading to the development of publications and reports on scientific findings for educational and community based work. * Conducted and instructed weekly labs with 50+ undergraduate and graduate students. * Tutored and coached students individually in the Cartography and GIS labs.

My research employs a multidisciplinary approach to link participatory field data with environmental data to propose a better understanding of overall rice genetic diversity (wild, folk varieties, and enhanced varieties) and rice germplasm management at the farmers’ level in different ecogeographical regions in my home country, Benin. My dissertation in particular utilizes various methodologies and is focused on three modes of inquiry. I have collected socio-economic and agro-ecological data using ethnographic surveys; I conducted molecular analysis of rice germplasm that was collected in the field from farmers; and I have developed a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to integrate all of this information to develop a base-line understanding of rice genetic resources and areas for conservation in Benin.

Selected as an Agriculture and Food Security subject matter expert for a live solicitation from USAID to function as the Agriculture Technical Advisor to the Evaluation Team on a final performance evaluation on Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development. Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development is a multi-donor funding program that aims to produce more food using less water or make more water available for food by supporting innovations in developing countries.

Africare's mission is to improve the quality of lives of the people in Africa.Africare's core expertise in community engagement, capacity building, locally-driven behavior change and innovative public-private partnerships empowers project participants with the knowledge and tools to achieve a sustainable path to prosperity. By integrating our core expertise with our technical specialties of Agriculture and Health, Africare's projects leverage local resources for under-served communities to solve their own development challenges, always prioritizing the cross-cutting themes of Economic Development; Nutrition; Water, Sanitation & Hygiene; Women's Empowerment; and Youth Engagement. In the United States, Africare's public outreach promotes understanding and dialogue about African history, culture and development issues.Africare is a registered 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Since our founding in 1970, Africare has benefited tens of millions of men, women and children through thousands of projects in 36 African countries.

Activities and Societies: GES/Graduate Student Association, Graduate Student Officer