Isabelle Ick is a social impact-driven development practitioner with program management, policy research, and capacity-building expertise. She specializes in food security, agriculture, and rural livelihoods and will graduate with a certificate in Social Innovation in Global Development.

With a strong background in management and operations, Isabelle is committed to facilitating localized empowerment through the transfer of decision-making, knowledge, and skills. She has worked across research, program implementation, and donor engagement with organizations such as AKADEMIYA2063, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, and Corus International. Her work has included policy and market analysis, fundraising research, and managing multi-million-dollar development projects. At Corus International, she co-led an organization-wide Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Audit and Action Plan and co-authored the Food Safety White Paper and Costing Tool.

Isabelle’s passion for development and localization was sparked as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, where she worked on sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and financial security initiatives. Her recent experience at AKADEMIYA2063 involved researching food security, food prices, and trade trends across Africa and supporting the implementation of a nutrition and vulnerability knowledge-sharing project.

Proficient in French, data analysis, and GIS mapping, Isabelle is skilled at collaborating with global stakeholders to design and implement high-impact development programs.

Why GHD?

I could list one hundred reasons why I chose GHD, but the people are the primary reason. GHD's staff and professors go above and beyond to teach and help us grow, personally and professionally. My classmates are incredible coworkers and create a very close and vital support system I know I will have for the rest of my life. While GHD has excellent academics, internship opportunities, extracurricular programming, and more, GHD would not be the same without its people.

Summer Internship

I completed my summer internship with AKADEMIYA2063, a research institution focused on assisting the African Union in achieving Agenda 2063. AKADEMIYA2063 focuses much of its research on food and agriculture policy across the continent. I spent much of my time leading the drafting and finalization of weekly briefs for USAID’s African Trade and Investment Activity, analyzing and synthesizing breaking news with available data to explain food security, food prices, and trade trends across the continent. I acted as program coordinator for the Digitally Enabled Resilience and Nutrition Policy Innovations (DERPIn) Project, which aims to strengthen the capacities of farmer organizations, policymakers, and other food system decision-makers to design and implement resilience-building strategies by using digital tools to generate and disseminate knowledge. I drafted relevant reports, supported stakeholder meetings, and planned knowledge dissemination events.