Erin McGuire holds a master of science in International Agricultural Development from UC Davis and a bachelor of art in political science from the College of Santa Fe. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Geography with a focus on innovation systems for appropriate technologies in developing countries.

Specifically, Erin works on the gender implications of scaling technologies in developing countries with the Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation team at Wageningen University and Research. She is also a CARE Innovation Fellow where she works on implications of Global North and Global South relations on localizing development activity.

Most recently, Erin was the Associate Director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab, a 25 million dollar USAID initiative focused on horticulture research across the value chain to empower small holder farmers in developing countries. She specializes in appropriate technology, monitoring and evaluation practices, and U.S. policy-driven initiatives.

Before coming to the Horticulture Innovation Lab, Erin served as the policy director for the National Farm to School Network, where she focused on children's nutrition and boosting small farm income. Empowering disadvantaged women and children with better health, and small-scale farming communities with financial prosperity are important drivers of Erin's work. Erin spent time working for the U.S. Congress, for a  congressional member that served on the House Agriculture Committee where she developed policies that benefited rural communities through better investments in government purchased local agriculture products. 

She has also worked as a researcher at UC Davis, where she worked with the D-Lab to set up and evaluate curricula in Honduras and Thailand (on a Horticulture Innovation Lab project) and with the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences International Programs Office on evaluating a call center efficacy in agricultural extension in Ghana and Bangladesh.

Keywords: Appropriate technology development, constraints and factors to adoption, innovation systems, horticulture, international development.