The World Food Prize Foundation has chosen Gebisa Ejeta as chair of the Laureate Selection Committee. Ejeta, a distinguished plant scientist and 2009 World Food Prize laureate, will direct the annual laureate selection process. He is just the third person to hold the role in the foundation’s 32-year history, along with founder Norman Borlaug and M.S. Swaminathan, Borlaug’s closest collaborator in inaugurating the Green Revolution. Ejeta, who was born in extremely poor circumstances in remote Ethiopia, rose to become one of the most distinguished plant scientists in the world, said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, the foundation’s president. In the 1990s Ejeta developed sorghum hybrids resistant to drought and the parasitic Striga weed. His work dramatically increased the production and availability of one of the world’s five principal grains, enhancing the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. He currently holds a distinguished professorship at Purdue University and serves as executive director of the Purdue Center for Global Food Security.