Staff experts

Browse the entire IATP staff directory

Jim Harkness
President
(612) 870-3403  jharkness@iatp.org
Harkness joined IATP in July 2006. Previously he served as Executive Director of the World Wildlife Fund in China from 1999–2005, where he expanded the organization’s profile from a strict focus on conservation of biodiversity to also addressing the consequences of China’s economic growth on a broader sustainable development agenda. From 1995–1999, Harkness worked as the Ford Foundation’s Environment and Development Program Officer for China. Harkness has written and spoken frequently on China and sustainable development, and has served as an adviser for the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Harkness grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s a graduate of the University of Wisconsin where he majored in Asian Studies. He received his graduate degree in Development Sociology from Cornell University.

Karen Hansen-Kuhn
International Program Director
(202) 222-0749 khansenkuhn@iatp.org
Karen Hansen-Kuhn joined IATP in September 2009. She has been working on trade and economic justice since the beginning of the NAFTA debate, focusing especially on bringing developing countries' perspectives into public debates on trade, food security and economic policy. She has published articles on U.S. trade and agriculture policies, the impacts of U.S. biofuels policies on food security, and women and food crises. She was the international coordinator of the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART), a U.S. multisectoral coalition promoting just and sustainable trade, until 2005. After that, she was Policy Director at the US office of ActionAid, an international development organization. She holds a B.S. in international business from the University of Colorado and a master's degree in International Development from The American University.

Dr. Steve Suppan
Senior Policy Analyst
(612) 870-3413  ssuppan@iatp.org
Steve Suppan has been Director of Research since 1998. Suppan began to work at IATP in 1994 as a translator, editor, bulletin writer and program officer for western hemispheric trade policy. Suppan is IATP's liaison to several governmental and intergovernmental organizations. From 1998 to 2003, he was IATP's liaison to the Trade and Environnment Policy Advisory Committee of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Since 2002, he has been the U.S. co-chair of the trade working group of the TransAtlantic Consumers Dialogue. Since 2000 he has been IATP's main liaison to Consumers International and has served on several Consumers International delegations to the Codex Alimentarius Commission and to Codex committees. He has written extensively on food safety policy and on agricultural trade policy. Most recently, he has written a paper on structural reform in the Codex Alimentarius Commission for CI's Decision Making in the Global Market project. Suppan has also represented IATP at meetings of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and was the NGO liaison to the U.S. government for the World Food Summit +5. He serves on the board of the Community Nutrition Institute.

Suppan has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Minnesota and studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. Prior to coming to IATP, he was an assistant professor in the department of Romance languages at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Mark Muller
Director, Food and Society Fellows program
(612) 870-3420  mmuller@iatp.org
Since starting at IATP in 1997, Muller has worked on a wide variety of issues, including agricultural diversification, nutrient management, agricultural transportation, regional food systems and renewable energy production. He has been involved in both regional project-based efforts and national policy development. He has had opinion pieces on agricultural policy appear in newspapers throughout the Midwest. Muller has a B.A. in physics from the State University of New York at Geneseo and a M.S. in environmental engineering from Manhattan College. Prior to joining IATP, Muller worked as an environmental engineer and high school science teacher.

Jim Kleinschmit
Director, Rural Communities program
(612) 870-3430  jim@iatp.org
Kleinschmit's work focuses on promoting working landscapes and sustainable rural development in both the U.S. and abroad. Current projects include: working with farmers and other stakeholders to establish sustainable crop production standards and markets in the Midwest; promoting and facilitating renewable energy and sustainable bioindustrial development projects; and helping increase understanding of the relationship of agriculture to surface and ground water management in the Great Lakes Basin. He has a M.A. from the Jackson School of International Studies of the University of Washington, and a B.A. in European history and Russian studies from St. Olaf College, Minnesota. Kleinschmit was raised on and is still active in the operation of his family's farm in Nebraska. He worked on rural development in the Baltics and Russia and in 1995 began working as the coordinator for the IATP's International Fellows Program, which informed officials from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe about international trade and agriculture issues. In 1996, he joined the Environment and Agriculture Program, focusing on nutrient and watershed management.

Julia Olmstead
Senior Program Associate, Rural Communities program
(612) 870-3431  jolmstead@iatp.org
Julia Olmstead joined IATP as a Senior Program Associate in the Rural Communities program in February 2009. Her work focuses primarily on biofuels and the bioeconomy. Julia has spent much of the last ten years working both domestically and internationally on issues related to sustainable agriculture and the bioeconomy as a journalist and scientist, as well as in industry. Her writing on agriculture and biofuels has appeared in magazines and newspapers nationwide including the Los Angeles Times, Des Moines Register, and Smithsonian Magazine. Julia was formerly a graduate fellow with the Land Institute in Salina, Kan., and is a member of that organization's Prairie Writers Circle. She has an M.J. from the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, an M.S. in plant breeding and sustainable agriculture from Iowa State University and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Dr. Dennis Keeney
Senior Fellow, Rural Communities program
(515) 232-1531  drkeeney@iastate.edu
Keeney was the first director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. He retired in 2000, and is professor emeritus of Agronomy and Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. Keeney grew up on a family dairy farm near Runnells, Iowa, and obtained a B.S. in agronomy from Iowa State University, a M.S. in soil science from The University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Ph.D. in agronomy and biochemistry from Iowa State University. He was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin in soils and water chemistry before coming to Iowa State in 1988. He has pioneered research and outreach on agricultural issues related to sustainability, land resource use, rural community development and water quality. Keeney has published over 140 refereed papers on soil and water quality research, and served on numerous state, federal and international scientific committees and task forces. He also served as president of the American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science of America. He has been a Senior fellow at IATP since 2000 and also is a senior fellow in the Department of Soil, air and water in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota.

Dr. David Wallinga
Director, Food and Health program
(612) 870-3418  dwallinga@iatp.org
David Wallinga, M.D., M.P.A., is Director of the Food and Health program at the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He currently is also a William T. Grant Foundation Distinguished Fellow in Food Systems and Public Health at University of Minnesota, School of Public Health. Dr. Wallinga applies a systems lens to think about health impacts of food and how it is produced, processed, packaged and distributed in today's globalized food system. IATP identifies strategies for consumers to find healthier food produced more sustainably, as well as public policies that can help build food systems that also are healthier, less-polluting and contribute less to climate change, while supporting farmers and rural communities. In addition to work on the Farm Bill and childhood obesity, Dr. Wallinga’s recent work includes research and writing on mercury in HFCS, petroleum-based food dyes, synthetic hormones given to cattle, and antibiotics used nontherapeutically in agriculture, as animal growth promoters and to produce corn ethanol. He received a medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School, a master’s degree from Princeton University and a bachelor’s from Dartmouth College.

Marie Kulick
Senior Policy Analyst, Food and Health program
(612) 870-3422  marie@iatp.org
Kulick joined the Food and Health team in 2004. A key focus of her work is on preventing pollution of the food chain by among other things promoting the use of safer materials and building support for an agricultural food system that reflects health considerations. In 2005, she authored Healthy Food, Healthy Hospitals, Healthy Communities, a report that highlights the successful efforts of health care facilities to improve access to fresh, sustainably produced food and identifies strategies for overcoming potential hurdles such as tight budgets and restrictive vendor contracts. Marie has a B.A. in communications from McDaniel College and a master of studies in environmental law from Vermont Law School. Prior to IATP, Kulick worked for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Environmental Fund for Maryland and Clean Water Action.

Kathleen Schuler
Senior Policy Analyst, Food and Health program
(612) 870-3468  kschuler@iatp.org
Schuler's focus is on protecting children, among other vulnerable populations, from environmental toxins in food. She has developed a Smart Fish Guide and online fish calculator to educate parents and women of childbearing age about eating safer fish and seafood lower in mercury and PCBs. She also served as the project coordinator for Reducing Pesticides in Minnesota Schools Pilot Project. Schuler has a master of public health degree from the University of Minnesota. As a Bush Leadership Fellow in environmental health, she also studied at Boston University and interned with the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. Schuler is an active member of both the Minnesota and American Public Health Associations.

JoAnne Berkenkamp
Director, Local Foods program
(612) 870-3410 jberkenkamp@iatp.org
JoAnne Berkenkamp joined IATP in 2007 as the Program Director for Local Foods. For the prior eleven years, Berkenkamp led an independent consulting practice working with nonprofits, food businesses and foundations across the United States. Her consulting work focused on market development for locally and sustainably grown food and the creation of farmer-owned businesses. She has also worked extensively in the program evaluation arena, leading efforts to improve the impact and shared learning of numerous food- and agriculture-related programs. Previously, she worked for the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, DC, and with Catholic Relief Services at various locations in Asia, Africa and Latin America. She started her career in the corporate finance world. JoAnne has a Master's in Public Policy degree from Harvard University, and a bachelor's in finance from the University of Illinois. JoAnne is past President of the board at the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and at Mississippi Market, a natural foods grocery cooperative in St. Paul, Minn.