Maria F. Balcazar Tellez

Maria is interested in mitigation and adaptation strategies to climate change as they relate to both food and energy production. As an agricultural engineer researcher, she worked on evaluating anaerobic digestion technology, as a waste management alternative, to produce renewable energy and improve air quality in animal farms in North Carolina. She also worked with Colombia's National Planning Department (Departamento Nacional de Planeación) developing an Evidence Gap Map in the environmental sector, to facilitate evidence-based policymaking among Colombian policymakers. Most recently, she supported the 'Enabling the Business of Agriculture' project, a Global Indicators team under the World Bank Group, with data collection and interpretation in the LATAM region.