Emma Quicho has more than 20 years of work experience focused on agricultural research. She started working with maize and, for the past 17 years, on rice-based ecosystems. Mrs. Quicho had the opportunity to characterize the different upland maize production systems in 24 locations across eight maize-growing regions in the Philippines under a CIMMYT project in 2001-2004. She was engaged in outscaling water-saving technologies for rice production in Asia by coordinating its dissemination and implementation with NARES partners.