Dr. Elizabeth Abraham (she/her) is Postdoctoral Scholar in Research and Extension at IonE. She works with Dr. Melissa Kenney on assessing stakeholder needs and decision support testing for the Dashboard for Agricultural Water Use and Nutrient Management (DAWN) project.

Dr. Abraham has expertise in social science research in Agricultural Education and Extension in the US. She earned her Ph.D. in Work Human Resource Education, minoring in Agricultural Education from the University of Minnesota. For her dissertation, she studied the “Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy of Tribal Farmers in Nagaland, India”. She conducted her mixed methods research by living with indigenous farmers in Nagaland for over a month conducting interviews and surveys and studying the psycho-social factors impacting entrepreneurial farmers. As a graduate student, she has worked in various research capacities with the Teachers Induction Program (TIP) at the University of Minnesota which is a professional learning community that aims to positively influence new agricultural education teachers’ development and efficacy in the state of Minnesota. She has led the mid-year and end of the year research and evaluation studies for TIP including the scholarly dissemination of the findings. As a postdoc, she spearheaded the data management efforts for TIP. As a graduate student, she has also worked for Professional Development at the University of Minnesota Extension.

Before immigrating to the United States. Dr. Abraham has had a wealth of experience as a Veterinarian and Extension Educator in India.  She has earned a degree in Veterinary Medicine and also has a Masters in Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Extension Education from India. As a Veterinarian and Extension Educator in India, she sought to understand the experiential knowledge of marginalized smallholder farmers and give them access to scientific information through training with the aim of supporting the health and production of their livestock. As a researcher and extension educator, she continues to be driven by the impact she can make on marginalized communities of the world.

In her free time, she is either playing with her two little kids, taking pictures of wildlife, finding interesting ways to grow plants indoors, planning to travel the world, or reminiscing about the time she worked with Elephants in India.