INTAD Student Spotlight: Sulav Paudel

Before joining the PhD program at Penn State, he was serving as the agriculture program coordinator at International Development Enterprises (iDE), in Kathmandu, Nepal. He was responsible for managing and developing iDE's agriculture program and for providing strategic direction and technical backstopping to partners and local NGOs. As a co-principal investigator and site coordinator for the USAID-funded Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab (IPM IL) and Horticulture Innovation Lab (Hort IL), Paudel collaborated on research and education programming to develop sustainable and profitable farming methods for smallholder farmers. On behalf of iDE, he also coordinated a five-year USAID project: Promoting Agriculture, Health and Alternative Livelihoods (PAHAL). For this project, he managed a grant portfolio of over $13 million.

He received his M.S. from Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania, with a dual degree in Entomology and International Agriculture and Development (INTAD). He is particularly interested in issues regarding sustainable agriculture, global food security, and international agriculture development. Sulav's current research focuses on developing a model to project the impacts of variation in temperature and climate on crops risks especially from insects and viruses. For someone who never grew up considering a career in agriculture but who now is fully engaged in every aspect of the field, he admits that it has continuously amazed him with new thrills and adventures.