Nathanial Peterson

I’ve been lucky to find a natural intersection of my two major career motivations. Intellectually, I’m fascinated by how people integrate information from their complex and dynamic risk environments to ultimately make decisions. Ethically, I’m upset by the American food system and related contributions to global climate change, so I hope to create a more resilient and regenerative version in the countries where I work. I came to Kenya to study, and hopefully help improve, the way food-producing households manage risks to their livelihoods.

At Busara, I work on agriculture technology uptake, especially crop insurance and climate resilient farming practices. I also lead new project development which means I spend about half of my time listening to our current and prospective partners and thinking of the best ways to integrate behavioral science with the solutions of subject matter experts.

Some of my recent work with Acumen on technology platforms to promote farmer resilience can be found here. This particular project, originally funded by FCDO, has been greatly extended by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition to these collaborations, one of my favorite partners to work with is MercyCorps AGRIFIN. My teams’ work with them can be found here and here.

Prior to joining Busara, I worked as a strategy consultant for colleges and universities in the US for nearly eight years. During that time I completed my PhD in Behavioral Decision Research at Carnegie Mellon University where I researched perceptions of college completion risk among high school students on Chicago’s South Side.

My undergraduate degrees are in Applied Economics (agriculture and natural resources) and Psychology. I speak English too quickly, Kiswahili too slowly, Spanish too confidently and Hausa too childishly, but I’m working to improve all of them.