Kathy Baylis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois. She works on international agriculture, forestry, trade and environment, with a particular interest in understanding policy impacts on food security and conservation. She joined the department after several years as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and earning her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003. Kathy has worked in agricultural policy in both Canada and the United States. In 2001/02, she was the staff economist in charge of agriculture and forestry for the Council of Economic Advisors in the White House, and in the mid-1990s, she worked as Executive Secretary with the National Farmers Union in Canada. She has helped bring in over $28 million in grants and has successfully advised and graduated over 20 graduate students. She has published over 40 journal articles and book chapters on agriculture, forestry, trade and environmental policy. She has also coauthored a textbook on Canadian and U.S. agricultural policy.