Chris Barrett
Chris Barrett has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.
The association elected 391 new fellows for 2016, awarding the honor for scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New fellows will receive their official honors Feb. 18 at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston.
Barrett is the the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management, international professor of agriculture, and professor of economics. He is also deputy dean and dean of academic affairs at the Cornell College of Business, and was chosen for his contributions to the field of agricultural and development economics, particularly for fieldwork to study poverty traps, markets in low-income countries, and food insecurity.
Barrett’s fundamental research objective is to help reduce unnecessary human suffering manifest in ill health, malnutrition, poverty, and vulnerability to disasters. These challenges afflict rural populations in Africa and Asia disproportionately, so his group’s work focuses mainly on those regions.
He joined the Cornell faculty in 1998 after four years on faculty at Utah State University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton, his master’s from Oxford, and his dual doctorate in economics and agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994. Barrett has published 15 books and more than 280 journal articles or book chapters that have collectively been cited more than 21,000 times.
He has been principal investigator or co-investigator on more than $30 million in research grants from sponsors including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the National Science Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
AAAS named two addition Cornell fellows: Sidney Leibovich, Ph.D. ’65, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering; and Dr. Thomas Walsh, professor of medicine, medicine in pediatrics, and microbiology and immunology.
