IA-TA Summit Bios

Mrs. Mwanaidi Sinare Maajar is Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United States of America.

Prior to Mrs. Maajar’s appointment to her current position she was High Commissioner of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Kingdon from April 2006 to July 2010. Leading up to her appointment as High Commissioner in June 2006, Mrs. Maajar was a partner at Rex Attorneys www.rexattorneys.co.tz , a leading law firm in Tanzania established in early 2006 following the merger of MRN&M Advocates ( Maajar, Rwechungura, Nguluma and Makani) and Epitome Advocates, another leading law firm in Tanzania.

She was a founding partner of MRN&M and the lead partner of its mining, natural resources and corporate law portfolio. She also practiced as an advocate of the high court of Tanzania specializing in corporate and mining law litigation. Prior to setting up her legal practice in 1991, she worked as senior legal advisor with the Central Bank of Tanzania and subsequently as Business Manager with Coopers & Lybrand, the predecessor firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Tanzania.

Mrs. Maajar was a member of the board of several public enterprises, government entities and private companies. She was also an active member of the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA), an NGO formed to harness the efforts of women lawyers to help women and children to access justice and to advocate for women rights. She was TAWLA’s chairperson between 2001 and 2003.

She was born and raised in Moshi, Tanzania and she is a holder of LLM and LLB degrees from the University of Dar-es-salaam and a member of the Tanzania bar.   Dorothy Masinde, PhD. Dr. Dorothy Masinde is a Lecturer in Global Resource Systems at Iowa State University and Internship Coordinator for Africa Region. She worked as an Associate Director of Field Operations in the Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods program, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa between 2004 and 2011. She has worked as a rural development and sustainable agriculture practitioner for over 26 years, working for the government, national, and bilateral organizations. She has taught at Colleges and Universities in Africa. She received her Bachelors degree in Agriculture and home Economics from Egerton University, Kenya, her master’s degree in Agriculture, in the field of Agricultural Extension and Adult Education from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and PhD in Rural Sociology from University of Nairobi.  Her research interests are participatory approaches to sustainable community development, management of knowledge systems, social context of food systems, and sustainable livelihoods.

She is currently a Co-Principal Investigator on a McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) funded project on “Promoting production and utilization of grain amaranth for improved nutrition and health in Uganda”, (2010-2014). She Co-leads a Service learning program at Iowa State University that partners with Makerere University, Uganda to work with Primary schools in Uganda to help teach agriculture, science and math, and establish school gardens to provide lunches to the children.

Allan M. Hoffman, Ed.D., CHES Allan M. Hoffman, Ed.D., CHES, is a nationally recognized expert and is frequent guest on radio, television and often quoted in news articles concerning violence issues. Dr. Hoffman is President Emeritus of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, which was a niche school of psychology and health sciences merged into the Chicago School; he served as CEO-Ottawa University, Arizona among other executive and faculty roles.  Among his past accomplishments, he was Director and founder of the Center for the Prevention of Community Violence, Des Moines University- Osteopathic Medical Center (Iowa) where he served as Dean, and Professor of Healthcare Management and Public Health .

He is an experienced educator and human-healthcare services administrator.    Dr. Hoffman has been a visiting scholar, adjunct professor, clinical professor, and professor at several institutions in the US and globally.

Dr. Hoffman has published extensively and authored several books focusing on violence and violence prevention.

He has served on the editorial board or as a manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Allied Health, Journal of Public Health, and Police Practice and Research:  An International Journal.  He has provided consulting services to schools, colleges/universities, and health care agencies, business organizations and governments in multinational settings. He earned his B.S. magna cum laude from the University of Hartford, and received two M.A. degrees and an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University where he was named a Kellogg Fellow.  He is a Certified Health Education Specialist.  Dr. Hoffman is the recipient of numerous awards and honors associated with his teaching/research and his efforts to prevent community violence and resolve conflict creatively.  He received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the Congress of the United States of America and a Special Recognition Award from the Executive Office of the President of the United States, Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Allan is married to Annie Marie Hopkins Hoffman and they have four children, Emily, Andrew, Heather and Alexis and two grandchildren, Elijah and Benjamin.

His favorite quote:” if you think you are too small to make a difference, tries sleeping in a tent with a mosquito”

His hobbies include volunteerism and distance bike riding, and he recently completed a metric century ride as well as a 500 mile bike ride across Iowa with several of his former students.

Carl J. Bern, Ph.D. - Dr. Bern is a University Professor and a Registered Professional Engineer with a PhD in agricultural engineering and professional engineer license (Iowa). Dr. Bern teaches courses on grain/oilseed preservation, handling and processing, and in electric power/electronics applications. Each of his courses includes a hand-on laboratory component which takes place in the Biomaterials Laboratory or in the Electric Power and Electronics Laboratory. Dr. Bern’s research focuses on storage of corn, edible beans, soybeans, distillers grains, and biorenewables including corn cobs and corn stover. Current projects involve storage of corn and edible beans on subsistence farms, drying corn cobs and corn stover, and preserving wet distillers grain during storage.

Dr. Bern lives in currently lives in Ames, Iowa, and teaches at Iowa State University.  His education includes a B.S. Agricultural Engineering, 1963 University of Nebraska, M.S. Agricultural Engineering, 1964 University of Nebraska, and a Ph.D. Agricultural Engineering, 1973 Iowa State University.

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2012 Iowa-Tanzania Summit