Rodomiro Ortiz (Lima, 1958) works as Chair Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU, Alnarp, Sweden), and holds BSc-Biology (Honors) and MSc-Plant Breeding & Statistics from the UNALM (National Agricultural University, La Molina, Perú), and a PhD-Plant Breeding & Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA). He has attended the Agribusiness Seminars at Harvard Business School (Cambridge, USA) and an International Internship Program in Intellectual Property Rights and Technology Transfer at Michigan State University (East Lansing, USA). He is member of the Independent Science and Partnership Council of the CGIAR since October 2015.
He worked as researcher at UNALM, Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP, Lima, Perú), Rutgers University (Chatsworth, New Jersey, USA) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria), held a Nordic professorship in plant genetic resources at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (KVL –now the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark), and was Director of the Genetic Resources and Enhancement Program at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India), Deputy-Director General, Director of Research for Development, Director of the Crop Improvement Division, and Officer in Charge of the High Rainfall Station (Onne, Nigeria) and the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Centre (Kampala, Uganda) of IITA, and Director of the Intensive Agro-ecosystems Program, Director of Resource Mobilization and Senior Advisor to the Director General at the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT, El Batán, México), and served as part-time Special Advisor to the Deputy-Director General Research of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA, Syria), and worked both as part-time Science Advisor of the interim Consortium Office of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and as independent free-lance consultant for international organizations. He has provided consulting services to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Program (WFP), the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC), Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) of Aberystwyth University, Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria (INIA) of Perú, Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (CORFO) of Chile through PricewaterhouseCoopers, Univ. Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), AfricaRice, CIP, IITA, the CGIAR Consortium Board, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank.
He was also member of the Center Commissioned External Review (CCER) of activities undertaken in Central America by the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and advisor of its flagship publication on eco-efficiency, Chairman of AfricaRice Genetic Diversity and Improvement Program CCER, and external reviewer of the Programa Cooperativo para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Agroalimentario y Agroindustrial del Cono Sur (PROCISUR), of Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) of Argentina, of Czech Academy of Sciences, and CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council, and of grant proposals submitted to the Fondo Regional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (FONTAGRO), Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Fondos para la Innovación, Ciencia y Tecnología (FINCyT) of Perú, Vetenskapsrådet (VR) of Sweden, Academy of Finland, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, ERANet-LAC and The Research Council of Oman, and serves on the boards of eight international journals.
At the beginning of this millennium, assisted the World Bank in developing a strategic note on “Science and Technology in Agriculture: Biotechnology and the Gene Revolution”, and has served more recently as external referee for reports in desertification and climate change. He has trained 30 students who did their degree thesis under his advice in Africa and Europe. Throughout his professional career, he has authored over 800 scientific publications of which 50% are either international refereed articles or edited book chapter and with h-index = 51 and cited > 10,000. He has given +240 invited lectures, seminars and international congress or conference keynotes. Together with his colleagues at IITA, KVL, ICRISAT, CIMMYT, ICARDA, SLU and partners, he has written 72 research-for- development proposals attracting about US$ 107 million.
As research manager, he also facilitated the funding of many special projects through professional and personal interactions with development investors of the CGIAR Centers, e.g. over 100 competitive or restricted grants bringing US$ 167 million to CIMMYT and partners. In 1994, the CGIAR awarded IITA the prestigious King Baudouin Award for the multidisciplinary research of the team working in plantain and banana improvement, in which Ortiz was both a hands-on researcher and program leader. He became in 2008 the first-ever elected chairman of the then Alliance Deputy Executive of the CGIAR Centers. In 2010, UNALM
Graduate School acknowledges him as an outstanding alumnus due to his international research and teaching. Plant Breeding Reviews dedicated to him its volume 36 (2012) (http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/43/11183458/1118345843-61.pdf). The 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security was awarded to the SLU/ICARDA–led research development partnership project Adapting durum wheat varieties to the Senegal Basin for food security, having him as co-PI. He reads, speaks and writes English and Spanish fluently, and has a basic knowledge of “Scandinavian”.
