A former professor with NC State University has been appointed head of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics effective Jan. 1. Dr. John C. Beghin, an economics professor at Iowa State University, will succeed Dr. Charles D. Safley, who retires in December after nearly 37 years of service at NC State.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Richard Linton said, “Dr. Beghin brings a wealth of experience and leadership in agricultural economics, and he is well-known nationally and globally. I am impressed by his knowledge and support of the land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension and his spirit of entrepreneurism.”

Beghin, who was on NC State’s faculty from 1988 to 1998, said he looks forward to continuing the department’s “long tradition of excellence” and to fostering new initiatives and even greater achievements.

Beghin is one of two Marlin Cole Professors in international agricultural economics at Iowa State. From 1999 to 2007, he served as director of ISU’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute and head of the trade and policy division of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD). Beghin is still affiliated with CARD and the university’s Global Food Security Research Consortium.

He has also held visiting appointments at the Institut National Agronomique in France, the University of Sydney in Australia and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in France.

Beghin’s research interests include agricultural trade policy analysis and the interface between trade growth and the environment, with emphasis on agriculture, food policy and bio-energy. He has published extensively on these topics in both academic journals and the popular press, and his work is widely cited.

A native of Belgium, Beghin holds a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s in agricultural economics from NC State. He is married to Yalem Teshome, and their daughter, Carla, is a junior at Washington University in Saint Louis.

This post was originally published in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences News.