Maria Andrade (scientist)

In 1958, Andrade was born in São Filipe, Cape Verde. She began her education in Cape Verde in Fogo and Santiago.[1] After completing high school, she went to the University of Arizona and graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science, specializing in plant genetics. She completed further education at the North Carolina State University, earning a Doctor of Philosophy degree in plant breeding in 1994.[2]

Andrade began her agricultural career when she started a Cape Verdean vegetable planting program in 1984. While leading the National Research Institute in Cape Verde, Andrade became a member of the Food and Agriculture Organization in 1994. From 1996 to 2001, she worked for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture as a sweet potato agronomist for a research group in Southern Africa.[3]

Andrade subsequently led a project in Mozambique that distributed sweet potatoes from 2002 to 2006. In 2006, she began working for the International Potato Center as a manager of sweet potato breeding in Southern Africa.[4] Andrade's research in sweet potatoes' value of providing the daily vitamin A requirements has led to the global support in their use in biofortification.[5] Outside of her work with the International Potato center, Andrade was the vice president of fundraising for the International Society for Tropical Root Crops from 2012 to 2016.[3]

In 2013, Andrade was named a Nutrition Champion by Transform Nutrition.[6] She was also a co-winner of the 2016 World Food Prize[1][7] and the sole winner of the 2017 M.S. Swaminathan Award for Environment Protection.[8]