Leaders of USAID and Peace Corps will speak at Iowa State Oct. 18

By ISU News Service

AMES, Iowa -- The chief administrators of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Peace Corps will present IowaState University's World Affairs Series keynote address.

USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah and Acting Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet will present "Feed the Future: Food Security and Agriculture in Development" at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. Their address is free and open to the public.

As USAID Administrator, Shah leads more than 8,000 professionals in 80 missions around the world. He has managed the U.S. government's response to the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, co-chaired the Department of State's first review of American diplomacy and development operations and spearheads President Barack Obama's landmark Feed the Future food security initiative.

Shah previously served as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for research, education and economics, and as chief scientist. At USDA, he launched the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which significantly elevated the status and funding of agricultural research. Shah also served for seven years with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as director of agricultural development in the Global Development Program and director of strategic opportunities.

Shah earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and his master's in health economics from the Wharton School of Business. He attended the London School of Economics and is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Before Carrie Hessler-Radelet became acting director of the Peace Corps, she served as deputy director and as a volunteer in Western Samoa from 1981 to 1983. She has worked in the field of public health for the past two decades, specializing in HIV/AIDs, and maternal and child health. Hessler-Radelet was actively involved in the establishment of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and was a primary author on its first strategic plan. She previously was a Johns Hopkins Fellow with USAID in Indonesia where she assisted the Indonesian government in developing and implementing its first national AIDS strategy.

Hessler-Radelet received her bachelor's from Boston University and her master's in Health Policy and Management from theHarvard School of Public Health.