K.C. Das is Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Georgia, Athens GA. He completed his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Anna University in Chennai, India; and earned a PhD in Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering from the Ohio State University, Columbus OH in 1995. He has since been working at the University of Georgia first in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Science, and since 2012 in the College of Engineering. His research expertise is in organic waste management, conversion of waste to value added products including biofuels, and in improving the sustainability of agricultural and food systems. He teaches courses in engineering unit operations both in physical processing and environmental engineering, systems thinking and systems engineering, and entrepreneurship and technology transfer. He has conducted collaborative, applied research projects in India, Colombia, and Mexico. He is listed in Clarivate Analytics’ 2018 list of world-class researchers selected for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations in Web of Science in the cross-disciplinary field. He is a life member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, and a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Georgia.
USAID Profile
Bureau of Economic Growth, Education, and Environment (E3)
Office of Local Sustainability (LS)
K.C. Das serves as senior science advisor in E3/LS and is studying local food systems with the goal of developing system maps representing actors and forces that enable or inhibit the food security of low-income households in East Africa. Specifically, he will study local food systems from the perspective of primary care-givers in households and will compute metrics of household food security, and identify leverage points within the local food systems that are most suitable for intervention. Local food systems' ability to provide food security for households will be assessed by comparing three contexts, namely, an urban food system, a rural food system, and a post-conflict affected food system. His work will support ongoing work within USAID’s E3/LS and the Bureau of Food Security (BFS).
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