French translation: Catalysts of Change: Women Leaders in Science - Pilu Giraudo

CIMMYT has launched a ‘TED Talk meets fireside chat’-style series on women leaders. As Marion Wright Edelman said, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” If we want more women leaders in science institutions like ours, we need to provide more opportunities to hear from women leaders about their life journeys, lessons, and insights. We seek to highlight women who are leaders in all sorts of capacities, fields and disciplines, because we believe that leadership styles can take many different forms.
This is our latest episode from the series Catalysts of Change, from Tuesday May 21, 2024.
Presenting Pilu Giraudo
María Beatriz (Pilu) Giraudo is the Vice President of INTA Argentina, an agronomist by profession, producer, and advisor. She has a postgraduate degree in Senior Management in Agribusiness and Food from the School of Agriculture at the University of Buenos Aires.
Pilu is a mother and a fifth-generation farmer who, along with her family, uses a zero-tillage system to cultivate soybeans, wheat, barley, corn, and sorghum, as well as livestock in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. With her training as an agronomist, Pilu is Honorary President of Aapresid (Argentine Association of Direct Sowing Producers) and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Global Farmer Network. She actively participates in various national and international NGOs focused on initiatives and the promotion of sustainable agriculture. Her advocacy work includes a weekly radio program hosted by rural women who share stories about their farms and lives every Saturday. Pilu worked for two years supporting Sustainable Development Policies for the Ministry of Agroindustry of Argentina and, in 2016, received the Kleckner Award from the Global Farmer Network at the Borlaug Dialogue of the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
Pilu will converse with Carolina Rivera, a wheat physiologist at CIMMYT with experience in traits related to dry matter partitioning and its association with yield, harvest index, and spike fertility. Carolina has worked extensively on the validation of traits for yield potential, as well as adaptation to heat and drought, and their use in a breeding context. Currently, Carolina co-leads the pre-breeding efforts of physiological traits and their transfer to the main wheat breeding processes.