Barbara Rischkowsky is program director of ICARDA’s Resilient Agricultural Livelihood Systems Research Program. She has over 25 years experience in production systems analysis and the development of technological and institutional interventions for increasing livestock productivity in resource-poor ruminant production systems and since 2006 has led the small ruminant research group at ICARDA.
Rischkowsky has developed management strategies for small ruminant production systems in non-tropical drylands with a special focus on adaptation to climatic variability and market opportunities. She has worked with the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), coordinating the compilation of the first ‘State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources’ and prior to that was assistant professor and senior scientists at the Georg-August University, Goettingen and the Justus-Liebig University, Giessen. Rischkowsky holds a Ph.D. in agricultural sciences from Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.