Taya Brown is originally from Seattle and has been around coffee her entire life. She has a strong background in both annual and perennial agriculture, with six years of experience farming and managing produce sales on an organic farm in Washington State and four years as Crew Leader on the Washington State University (WSU) Tukey Orchard. Taya graduated from WSU with bachelor’s degrees in Organic Agricultural Food Systems and Plant Biology with minors in Horticulture and Soil Science. She writes grants, develops research and designs opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to study and research coffee, including opportunities on the Texas A&M campus and high-impact experiences in producing countries.

Taya is also a PhD student in the Horticultural Sciences Department at TAMU, where she studies international agricultural development with focus on project development, monitoring and evaluation and grant writing. Her specific interest is in working on food security issues within small farms, marginalized populations and in rural areas. She currently lives in Guatemala where she is investigating the linkage between socioeconomics and the uptake of hybrid technology on small scale coffee farms, with the goal of providing the industry with a better understanding of the obstacles faced by smallholder coffee farmers. Her research is in collaboration with World Coffee Research and Anacafé and is supported by The Starbucks Foundation through World Coffee Research, The Center for Global Food Security at Purdue University and The Conflict and Development Foundation.

Please contact her with any questions or ideas for collaboration over research and education.