Robert Paarlberg
Faculty Advisor

Robert Paarlberg is an Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center and also an Associate in the Sustainability Science Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been adjunct professor of public policy at the Kennedy School and is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. He received his PhD in International Relations from Harvard University, and his research focus is on international food and agricultural policy. He is the author of six university press books. The third edition of Paarlberg’s 2010 Oxford University Press book, Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, was published in September, 2023.

Paarlberg has been a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council of the National Academies, 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. At Harvard, he is currently a member of two research clusters with grants from the Salata Institute, one focused on livelihood protection for coastal fishing communities in West Africa under threats of ocean warming, and the second focused on methane abatement strategies for beef and dairy producers in the Global South. He recently chaired the independent steering committee for a CGIAR research program, Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), and on six different occasions he has testified before Congress.  He lives in Watertown, Massachusetts with his spouse, Marianne Perlak.