Participants
Melissa Ho

Melissa Ho
Associate Program Officer
Gates Foundation
Seattle, USA

Melissa joined the Agricultural Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in January 2007. Most recently, Melissa came from Washington D.C., where she worked in the U.S. Senate on agricultural, environmental and nutrition policy. Melissa has worked and lived in East Africa, Central America, and China. She was trained as a crop scientist and has a Ph.D. in plant biology from the Pennsylvania State University, a MSc in Soil Science from UC Davis and a BSc in Environmental Systems from Cornell University. Her research has always focused on abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms of crop plants, particularly for adaptation to drought and low-nutrient environments. Her passions have always centered on food, agriculture and working with people that work the land.