Expertise

Research translation; research impact; capacity strengthening; ethnographic research; traditional knowledge; West Africa

At the Keough School

Alexandra Towns is a policy impact specialist in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She enhances the policy impact at the Keough School by identifying relevant research, facilitating its translation into policy-relevant outputs and fostering strategic partnerships in Washington, DC, and in the Global South.

Biography

Prior to joining the Keough School, Towns was the research translation strategy lead on the $70 million USAID-funded project LASER (Long-term Assistance and Services for Research) PULSE (Partners for University-Led Solutions Engine) with Catholic Relief Services (CRS). In this role, she led the development and implementation of the Embedded Research Translation approach for fifty collaborative research projects between researchers, practitioners, and policymakers around the world.

Before LASER PULSE, Towns advised on university collaborations to improve CRS programming in more than 100 countries and led assessments on African indigenous vegetables for CRS food security programs in Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Uganda, and Zambia. Prior to joining CRS, Towns worked at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, researching West African plant markets and African plant-based medicine for maternal and infant health in Benin and Gabon.

Towns holds a PhD from Leiden University (the Netherlands) in ethnobotany, a MS in international agricultural development from the University of California, Davis, and a BS degree in international development from Towson University.