Dr. LaKisha Odom joined the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) in 2016 as a scientific program director to pursue her commitment to promoting the use of innovative science and interdisciplinary thinking to tackle today’s complex challenges in food and agriculture. She is also committed to cultivating increased diversity in a new generation of food and agriculture scientists. In her current position, she has championed work force development programs to train the future leaders in Agriculture and has developed a portfolio of over $60 million dollars in public private partnership to support soil health.

She maintained her passions for the inter-sectional space of research and policy in federal, academic and nonprofit spaces through holding positions in the US EPA in the Office of Research and Development and the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response’s Brownfield’s Redevelopment Program, during her doctorate career as a CREATE-IGERT fellow and as a researcher at Teagasc Research facility in Carlow, Ireland. She continued to combine her passion for interdisciplinary innovative research and policy when selected to serve as an early career intern for the Public Policy Board of the American Phytopathologicial Society. In 2013, LaKisha became an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the USDA Biotechnology Regulatory Service, where she managed a diverse portfolio which included working with the OECD Working Group for the Harmonization of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology.

LaKisha received her bachelor’s degree from Tuskegee University, her master’s degree from The George Washington University and her doctorate from Tuskegee University.