People Section

Auburn University

New Appointment: Zhongyuan Liu, Post-Doctoral Scholar
Award: Valentina Hartarska, Auburn University College of Agriculture, Guthrie Award for Achievement in International Agriculture

New appointments: Belay Mohammed Yimer, Research Officer; Prapti Barooah, Research Analyst
Awards: Els Lecoutere, Bjorn Van Campenhout and David Spielman, 6th African Conference of Agricultural Economists, Best Paper Focused on Gender Issues; Yanyan Liu, CGIAR, 2019 Inspire Challenge Scale-Up Winner
Honorary Appointment: Suresh Babu, Advisory Board of the Afghanistan Institute of Nutrition and Home Economics

Retirements: Jane Sandstrom, 40+ years of service
Leaves: Marc Bellemare, one semester; Rodney Smith, one year
Visitor: Lijuan Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Visiting Scholar, September 2019-September 2020
New Appointment: Derric Pennington, Senior Sustainability Scientist

Awards: Emma Boase, Food Distribution Research Society Richardson-Applebaum Award, Best M.S. Thesis on Food Distribution and Marketing; Maria Kuhns, Allie Lock, Chase Morrison and Abby Schmidt, Food Distribution Research Society Student Food Marketing Challenge, second place; Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, Certificate of Merit for Faculty Engagement, University of Missouri Engagement Council
Position Taken By Recent Graduate: Emma Boase, M.S., joint position as PhD Fellow at Aarhus University, Denmark, and with Arla Foods focused on food marketing

Awards: Matthew Stockton, WAEA, Outstanding Extension Award for Project; Cory Walters and Christopher Gustafson, WAEA, JARE Outstanding Journal Reviewer Award, 7 or fewer Years of Experience; Taro Mieno, AAEA, AJAE Outstanding Reviewer

Visitors: Fen Liao, Visiting Scholar, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, November 1, 2019, one-year sponsored by Prof. Wuyang Hu; Xiaoxiao Zhang, Visiting Scholar, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China, November 1, 2019, one-year sponsored by Prof. Brent Sohngen.

Awards: Wallace E. Tyner, USAEE, Senior Fellow 2019 (posthumous); Nathan Thompson, SAEA, Emerging Scholar 2020
New Appointments: Ken Foster, interim department head, Purdue University Department of Food Science; Otto Doering, board member, American Farmland Trust

Positions Taken by Recent Graduates: Grace Grossen, MS, Agricultural Economist, Marketing & Trade Economics division of ERS; Zhen Cheng, PhD, Researcher, Anhui University
Honorary Positions: Gizem Korkmaz, Adjunct Professor, University of Virginia; Kelly Cobourn, Adjunct Professor, Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation
Retirement: Richard T. Crowder, 11 years of service
Visitors: Dylan Bouchard, PhD student, North Carolina State University, Guest lecturer for our PhD student exchange, October 2019; Jim Kahn, Professor, Washington and Lee University, Guest lecturer, November 2019; Le Wang, Professor, University of Oklahoma, Guest lecturer, November 2019