William J. Burke is an agricultural economist with over 15 years of experience leading research and policy engagement across Sub-Saharan Africa. He has served as an Associate Professor at Michigan State University and as a Research Scholar at Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment. Burke has led major donor-funded food security initiatives in Malawi, providing strategic and technical guidance to the MwAPATA Institute and PolSAT, the Ministry of Agriculture’s policy support unit. He previously spent several years embedded with Zambia’s national agricultural policy think tank, where he led research on fertilizer policy, market systems, and household livelihoods. His work combines econometric rigor with practical field experience and transdisciplinary collaboration, and has been published widely in peer-reviewed journals and policy briefs. A former Peace Corps volunteer in The Gambia, Burke is committed to evidence-based, locally informed solutions for food security and rural development.
