Current Executive Committee

IAALD Executive Committee 2011/2012

Dr. Edith Hesse is Head of Corporate Communications and Capacity Strengthening at CIAT, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, in Cali Colombia.  She has been part of the CGIAR since 1979 when she joined the Economics Program at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) in Mexico and in 1984 became the leader of a scientific information management project funded by IDRC (International Development Research Center, Canada). In this context she implemented various innovative scientific information management and knowledge sharing approaches within  at the CIMMYT and at CGIAR level, as well as executed a variety of consultancies commissioned by the World Bank, the Kellogg Foundation and other entities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Dr. Hesse has been involved in IAALD since 1984 and served on the IAALD Executive Committee from 1995-2000.

Federico Sancho has been involved with agricultural projects that were related to information management for agriculture and rural development in Costa Rica and Central America since 1997.  After that experience, he has became involved in different initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean relating to the same issues, including publishing, knowledge management, library services and training. In 2004 he was appointed head of the technical information services of the Inter American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), now all under the Inter American Information and Editorial Production Center for Agriculture of the Institute.  The Center that he leads is responsible for the Alliance of Ag-Information Services of the Americas-SIDALC (www.sidalc.) with more than 23 countries participating.   As a promoter of Ag-information networks in the region, he has implemented different projects related with information and knowledge management for agriculture.  Currently he is member at large of the Agricultural Network of Information Centers (AGNIC) in the US and is a former Executive Secretary of the AIBDA.   He holds a MBA with emphasis on international negotiations, as well as a degree in project management for development.  Mr. Sancho has been active in IAALD for several years and most recently served as the IICA Liaison to the Executive Committee.

Dr. Barbara Hutchinson is Assistant Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station and Director of International Program Development at the University of Arizona (USA). She is particularly interested in using information technologies to support learning and decision making and, in that capacity, she is involved in a collaboration to develop a Global Rangelands knowledge system.  She has served on the IAALD Executive Committee for five years and, previously, as President of the United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) and Chair of the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC).  Her interest in IAALD extends back to 1985 when she joined the Association and attended her first World Congress in Ottawa, Canada.  She served as Chair of the 1997 joint conference of IAALD and USAIN held in Tucson, Arizona.  Dr. Hutchinson formerly served as Director of the Arid Lands Information Center at the University of Arizona where she developed extramural projects to disseminate information about the world’s arid regions.

Toni Greider is serving in her second term as Secretary/Treasurer of IAALD and is currently the Director for International Programs for the University of Kentucky Libraries (Lexington, KY USA).  She previously held the positions of Associate Dean for Research and Education and Director of the Agriculture Library at the same University.  She had direct responsibility for the management of agriculture information on the University of Kentucky campus for 32 years. She has been active in many professional organizations including serving as President of United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) from 1995 to 1998 and is currently a member of the American Library Association International Relations Roundtable.  She has been a member of IAALD her entire professional career and has been active since 1990, serving as the IAALD editor from 1990-2000; chair of the XIth IAALD World Congress held in Lexington, Kentucky in 2005 and Secretary/Treasurer from 2005-2010.  

General Board Members:

Odile Bédu is in charge of Information in the International Relations Department of INRA (Institut national de la recherche agronomique, France), a position she has held since 2000.  Prior to joining the International Relations Department, she was Documentalist, and a library director in the agricultural economics and agrofood sector, INRA, Montpellier. During this time, she also was a part time lecturer in several higher education institutions in Montpellier.  She has taken part in several European projects to modernize libraries in Central Europe. She is involved in many professional associations (ADBS, Agropolis-IST), where she defends the sharing of information. Her main publication focus is bibliometric analysis. Ms. Bedu is a relative new member to IAALD but her participation in the two IAALD congresses in 2008 and 2010 led her to join the IAALD Executive Committee. She is serving in a 2 year board position.

Jaron Porciello is the Coordinator for Instruction and Business Information Programs at Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University. In her prior position she was the International Programs Librarian, TEEAL Director at Mann Library and she continues to work closely with The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) and other international programs supported by Mann and Cornell.  She is the chair of the Research4Life (HINARI, AGORA, OARE) training team and is also a member of the Research4Life Executive Council. Jaron received her M.L.S. (‘06) and M.A., Literature (’07) from Indiana University. She is delighted to be a part of the IAALD board, and looks forward to working with partners and members worldwide on energetic and productive partnerships. Ms. Porciello is a new member of IAALD and is filling a 3 year position on the IAALD Executive Committee.

Jerry Miner is the GlobalHort Webmaster and a Communication Consultant.  He has his master’s degree in Information Science from the University of Toronto and presently resides in Nova Scotia, Canada.  He has worked as an information professional in an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada horticultural research centre from 1970-2010. He previously worked at the University of Saskatchewan, the University of New Brunswick, Acadia University and for the Nova Scotia Department of Education.  Having worked on the GlobalHort staff in Tanzania in 2008, Mr. Miner is now on contract with GlobalHort. Mr. Miner is a new “old” member of IAALD.  He was active in IAALD in the 1980s and was a participant in the 1985 IAALD World Congress in Ottawa.  His career took him away from IAALD and recently rejoined to the organization to reconnect with his colleagues in information management.