Ricardo Salvado

Ricardo Salvador is the senior scientist and director of the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He has over four decades of experience working with citizens, scientists, economists, and politicians to transition our current food system into one that grows healthy foods while employing sustainable and socially equitable practices. Before coming to UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for Food, Health, and Wellbeing with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In this capacity, he was responsible for conceptualizing and managing the Foundation’s food systems programs that addressed the connections between food and health, environment, economic development, sovereignty, and social justice. Dr. Salvador earned his undergraduate degree in agricultural science from New Mexico State University and holds an M. S. and Ph. D. in crop production and physiology from Iowa State University (ISU). He was an associate professor of agronomy at ISU where he taught the first course in sustainable agriculture at a Land Grant University.