As Medical Anthropologist and Associate Research Professor, Dr. Mary Read-Wahidi is the co-founder and co-director of the Gender Impacts Lab at the SSRC. She has served as the Gender Impacts co-lead for the Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab since joining the lab in 2015 and as the Gender and Youth co-lead for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish Management Entity since the lab’s creation in 2018. Read-Wahidi has served as PI, co-PI, senior research scientist, and evaluator on projects supported by USAID, the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Internationally, her research focuses on vulnerable populations in Ghana and Zambia. In the US, her research focuses on rural populations, migrant populations, agricultural workers. Read-Wahidi’s global research focuses on positively impacting food security, gender equity, and agricultural productivity among small-scale men and women farmers, fishers, and other value-chain actors to help feed the world’s growing population.

Dr. Read-Wahidi's work is supported in part by MAFES.