CFANS faculty receive prestigious University honors

The University has announced its top awards for 2022, and CFANS is honored to celebrate three recipients of this prestigious recognition.

Department of Applied Economics Northrop Professor Marc Bellemare, PhD, has been named a 2022 Distinguished McKnight University Professor. The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship program recognizes outstanding faculty members who have recently achieved full professor status. Recipients hold the title “Distinguished McKnight University Professor” for as long as they remain employed at the University of Minnesota. Marc Bellemare’s research lies at the intersection of agricultural economics, food policy, international development, and applied econometrics. He has studied the poverty-reduction potential of agricultural value chains in low- and middle-income countries, the consequences of high and volatile food prices on welfare, and agricultural and food policy. In addition to making highly influential contributions to the economics of food systems, he has made significant contributions to the empirical methods used by economists and other social scientists.

Bellemare also received the Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education, which recognizes a select group of faculty members for their outstanding contributions to graduate and/or professional education. His goal as an advisor is to help graduate students make the transition from student to independent scholar. Professor Bellemare's work advances our understanding of agricultural economics, international development, and applied econometrics. This honor is awarded annually to exceptional candidates nominated by their colleges in their quest to identify excellence in graduate and/or professional education. In addition to honoring individual faculty members, the award contributes to the improvement of graduate and professional education at the University by publicizing their work to serve as resources to the whole faculty. 

Department of Applied Economics Assistant Professor Jason Kerwin, PhD, and Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics Assistant Professor Jacob Jungers, PhD, have been named McKnight Land-Grant Professors. The goal of the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship Program is to advance the careers of assistant professors at a crucial point in their professional lives. The designation of “McKnight Land-Grant Professor” is held by recipients for a two-year period. Learn more about each faculty members' research below.

Kerwin: Using Innovative Programs and Randomized Field Experiments to End Global Poverty

Despite incredible progress and economic growth over the past fifty years, many parts of the world are still persistently poor. These disparities create a moral imperative to raise living standards in the developing world and tackle the numerous other challenges facing poor countries. Dr. Kerwin answers that call by using randomized experiments and the tools of economics to discover and test solutions to the interlocking set of social and economic problems that keep people poor.

Jungers: Developing and Deploying New Crops to Improve Agricultural Sustainability

Agriculture is dominated by annual crops that leak nutrients and emit greenhouse gases. Dr. Jacob Jungers is developing the world’s first perennial grain crop, which has potential to drastically improve agricultural efficiency. His research focuses on how to grow this new crop alongside others to minimize fertilizer and pesticide inputs. Outcomes of his research result in improving farmer profitability while minimizing environmental damages such as soil loss, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.