Robert Paarlberg

Robert Paarlberg has research appointments at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Kennedy School of Government. He has been adjunct professor at the Kennedy School and is emeritus professor of political science at Wellesley College. He received his PhD in International Relations from Harvard, and he is the author of six university press books including Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford 2023) and Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa (Harvard University Press, 2008). He also published a 2021 book with Knopf titled Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food we Grow and Eat, which was a Nautilus Book Award winner in 2022. Paarlberg has been a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council and the board of directors of Winrock International. He has worked in 15 different countries in Africa as a consultant to the International Food Policy Research Institute, USAID, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Aspen Institute, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is currently researching livelihood risks facing fishing communities in West Africa under climate change, supported by Harvard’s Salata Institute. In addition, he recently chaired the independent steering committee for a CGIAR research program, Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. On six different occasions he has testified before Congress. He lives in Watertown, MA, with his wife Marianne.