Prabhu Pingali 

Prabhu Pingali, director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI), has been inducted as a Pravasi Fellow of India’s National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). The Pravasi Fellowship is awarded to expatriate Indians for their contributions to the agricultural sciences in India.

The founding director of TCI, Pingali is a faculty member in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, with joint appointments in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Pingali has more than three decades of experience as an agricultural economist working with some of the leading international agricultural development organizations as a research economist, development practitioner, and senior manager. Before joining TCI, Pingali was the deputy director of the Agricultural Development Division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He also served as director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Agriculture and Development Economics Division. He has written 13 books and over 120 refereed journal articles and book chapters on food policy.

“Thanks to all my terrific students, research fellows, postdocs and collaborators who have jointly contributed immensely in achieving the desired results in our research studies,” Pingali said during his induction. “My gratitude to existing NAAS members for reposing their faith in me. It is an honor to be a part of the Academy and I hope the platform helps me even more in contributing to India’s agricultural growth to the best of my knowledge and capabilities.”

Established in 1990, the NAAS provides a forum for agricultural scientists to deliberate on important issues of agricultural research, education, and extension and present the views of the scientific community as policy inputs to planners and decisionmakers at various levels.