Patricia Parera is Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) helping lead the work of CCS at the nexus of climate change, ecological security, and food security.
Previously, she served as Associate Director for Partnerships and Global Initiatives at Virginia Tech where she also was a lecturer on sustainable development. She established and managed student and faculty exchange Fulbright programs as well as the US-Jordanian University Cooperation Program funded by the US Embassy. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Patricia was a senior operations officer with the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Division for Latin America where she managed and supervised an agricultural technology project and prepared an operation to improve seed production systems to increase food security and nutrition in Nicaragua. She also coordinated food security country investment plans under the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).
Before joining the World Bank, Patricia was a policy officer with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome, Italy, where she conducted research and coordinated a socio-economic study on the roles of agriculture and its contribution to sustainable development. She was also a gender and policy consultant with the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, where she conducted research and contributed to the publication of IFAD’s Flagship Publications on Rural Poverty Alleviation. While at IFAD, Patricia prepared the first Indigenous peoples’ strategy for the organization and oversaw the approval of funding requests under the Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility.
Patricia has a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Linguistics from the National University of Cordoba, Argentina. She also holds a certificate in teaching from The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University. She was born and grew up in Argentina before moving to the United States to attend graduate school. She has more than twenty years of international experience as a social sustainability and inclusion specialist. Patricia is trilingual, Spanish, English and Italian and has lived in five countries and worked in more than twenty-two. Patricia thrives in diverse cultures and creating synergies and experiences with people from different professional, geographical, and cultural backgrounds.
