Melissa Leach

Melissa Leach is a member of the IPES-Food panel, and is the forthcoming executive director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative – a unique collaboration between the University of Cambridge and ten leading internationally focused biodiversity conservation organisations. She is also a professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Previously she was Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, and co-founder of the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre, with its pioneering pathways approach to innovation, sustainability and development issues.

Her interdisciplinary, policy-engaged research in Africa and beyond links environmental, agricultural, health, technology and gender issues. Her highly-cited publications include the books Dynamic Sustainabilities: Technology, Environment, Social justice (2010, Earthscan); Green Grabbing (co-ed, 2012, Taylor and Francis); The Politics of Green Transformations (co-ed, 2015, Taylor and Francis) and Gender Equality and Sustainable Development (ed, forthcoming).

She is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy for Social Sciences, Academia Europaea and the International Science Council and was awarded a CBE in 2017 for services to social science. She has been vice-chair of the Science Committee of Future Earth and lead author of several UN reports, as well as the 2016 World Social Science Report 2016 on Challenging Inequalities.