Dr. Angela Records joined the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) as the chief scientific officer in May 2023.
Records has spent more than 20 years pursuing transformational impact, from her work as a plant pathologist to her role at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she co-founded and led the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security’s Research Community of Practice.
During her time at USAID, Records led a team that drafted the U.S. Government’s Global Food Security Research Strategy (2022-2026), the federal roadmap for supporting food security research initiatives. She further played leading roles in collaborations across U.S. governmental agencies, including serving as the executive secretary of the National Science and Technology Council-led Microbiome Interagency Working Group.
Records has substantial experience planning, operationalizing and managing international research programs and building partnerships across academic and research institutes, the private sector, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, research-for-development donors and other actors toward a shared agenda. She managed 16 multi-year research programs active in more than 38 countries with more than 90 collaborating institutions.
Throughout her career, Records’ work has focused on leveraging science to solve the world’s greatest challenges. She has published dozens of manuscripts, including a book and publications in Science and Nature Microbiology. Her article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as highlighted in the Washington Post, outlines how plant protection must adapt to ensure sustainable crop cultivation in the face of climate change.
Records holds a bachelor’s of science in biology from Baylor University, a master’s of science in biological sciences from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and she earned her doctorate in plant pathology from Texas A&M University, where she studied molecular plant-microbe interactions.