Center Directors General

Shenggen Fan was appointed director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in December 2009. Growing up in rural China in the 1960s and 1970s, Shenggen Fan became deeply committed to reducing poverty and hunger. He joined IFPRI in 1995 as a research fellow and led the program on public investment before directing the Development Strategy and Governance Division. Prior to working at IFPRI, he held positions at the International Service for National Agricultural Research, and the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, University of Arkansas.

Shenggen Fan has a PhD in applied economics from the University of Minnesota, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Nanjing Agricultural University, China. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Food Security, as well as a member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists executive committee. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Food Policy and the Journal of Chinese Rural Economy.