Rebecca Gyawu joined the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) in August 2019 as a scientific program associate. She was later promoted to scientific program officer. In this role, Gyawu supports the Bolstering Healthy Food Systems Priority Area. Some of her responsibilities include managing programs, recruiting and assigning peer reviewers and assisting with content development for new programs.
She is passionate about solving food security issues in underserved communities domestically and abroad. Prior to joining FFAR, Gyawu was a design monitoring and evaluations specialist with World Vision and spent over three years working to improve food security in underserved communities through nutrition education and research. She also worked for the Food Trust as a project associate, The Center for Childhood Obesity Research, Penn State as a research technologist and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore Extension as a program assistant.
She holds a master’s degree in food and nutritional science from Tuskegee University and another master’s in global health policy management from Brandeis University. She completed her undergraduate studies with a major in food and nutrition from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, where she originates.
She co-authored a diabetes education manual with her academic advisor. She published part of her master’s thesis work on evaluating the food and nutrition environment for cancer risk prevention in the Journal of Preventive Medicine Report.