Thomas A. Lumpkin has served as Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center since 15 March 2008. CIMMYT is 1 of 15 international agricultural research centers supported by the CGIAR. Lumpkin grew up on a small farm in eastern Washington State USA, located on the boundary between the irrigated desert and the rainfed wheat production area. As a young man, he served in the Peace Corps in the Konkan region of India, teaching rice production along with wheat and horticultural crops. He has a BSc from Washington State University in agronomy, and MSc & PhD degrees in agronomy from the Univ. of Hawaii. He carried out his doctoral research in mainland China and served as a Research Scholar at IRRI for 6 months. Lumpkin worked at Washington State University as a professor and later as Chair of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.