Dr. Peter Richards serves as the Senior Economist to USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL). In his current role, Dr. Richards provides intellectual leadership and support to high level agency initiatives. Previously, he served as an agricultural economist with USAID’s Bureau for Food Security, where his work focused on identifying, developing and applying a new generation of analytical tools towards improving the precision and efficiency of food security programming. Prior to joining USAID, Dr. Richards worked at Brown University’s Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES), where his work focused on understanding the drivers and impacts associated with agricultural change in Latin America, and the policies which shaped and directed these changes. Dr. Richards has written extensively on the relationship between technology, macro-economic shocks and agricultural change. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Michigan State University.