Dr. Latha Nagarajan joined IFDC in 2011, and currently serves as the Director of the SOILS Consortium. Dr. Nagarajan previously headed the institution-wide MELS systems and coordinated the Feed the Future SFT Project. She is an Applied and Agricultural Economist, with specific focus on project and program evaluation and assessment of agricultural technologies adoption, input market interventions and policy research. She has been also involved in studying the seed systems and markets in south Asia and sub-Saharan African countries with several development partners and works closely the Rutgers University Feed the Future Policy Research Consortium.

Prior to IFDC, Nagarajan worked at Rutgers University as faculty research professor managing projects funded through Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and USAID; post-doctoral researcher at IFPRI, managing research in India, Kenya and Niger; graduate research positions at the applied economics department, University of Minnesota; and economist and project manager for projects at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, India.  

Nagarajan holds a Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota, with bachelor’s and master’s degree in Agricultural Sciences, and Business Management from India, and has published articles in peer reviewed journals.