Dr. Amber Sciligo is the Director of Science Programs at The Organic Center where she directs projects associated with communicating and conducting research related to organic agriculture. During her tenure at The Organic Center, Dr. Sciligo has worked closely with researchers, industry, farmers, and policymakers to identify organic research needs, and she has collaborated on a diverse range of research programs with her most recent collaborations including projects aimed at: 

- Mitigating climate change 

- Increasing the accessibility of equitable agricultural technology aimed at supporting the organic supply chain 

- Reducing incongruities in National Organic Program standards and third-party food safety requirements 

- Tackling challenges associated with inadvertent pesticide contamination across the organic supply chain 

- Incorporating livestock into cropping systems   

Dr. Sciligo received her PhD at Lincoln University, New Zealand in Ecology & Evolution. While her technical expertise is grounded in plant-insect interactions, particularly pollination, her extensive postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley, took an interdisciplinary approach to intersect ecological, economic and socio-political arenas to reveal truly sustainable farming practices.  

The main goal of Dr. Sciligo’s research is to understand how farming practices that promote biodiversity and ecosystem services can be better supported at all farm scales. She hopes that by finding barriers to and opportunities for adoption, policy can more feasibly support farmers to adopt practices that simultaneously protect the land and support the economic health of their farms, while improving their own livelihoods and the livelihoods of their local communities.