The agricultural and applied economics profession is brimming with young talent preparing to lead the next wave of research projects, policy changes and innovation. In our ongoing effort to catalyze informed decision making, the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (C-FARE) will host a professional development panel from 1 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT July 22.

The aim of the event is to introduce young professionals and graduate — or graduating — students to the kinds of work done in a large government agency, a nonprofit industry advocacy group, a private government and regulatory affairs firm, and media and communications.

Moderating the panel is Dr. Gal Hochman, C-FARE Board Chair and a resource economist at Rutgers University. Joining him are four professionals.

• Dr. Cynthia Nickerson has provided policy-relevant economic expertise to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and presidential administrations for two decades. As the department’s Deputy Chief Economist, she provides policy and technical analysis and advice to the Chief Economist, the Secretary of Agriculture, and other senior officials. Until recently, she was Director of the Division of Market and Trade Economics at the department’s Economic Research Service. She spent two years as a senior economist on the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers (2013-2015). She received her Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Maryland.

• Dr. John Newton is the Chief Economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest organization of independent farmers in the United States. He manages the Farm Bureau’s economics department and coordinates and conducts analyses used for the development and advocacy of Farm Bureau policy in Washington. Before this, he was an agricultural economist for the USDA, and an award-winning faculty member at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He holds a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.

• Barbara Patterson is Director of Government Affairs for Michael Torrey Associates, a Washington-based food and agricultural lobbying firm. She advises clients on a wide range of legislative and regulatory issues impacting the sector. She held the same position with the National Farmers Union where she advocated for family farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in Washington. She focused on trade, livestock, competition, nutrition and food safety. She holds a master’s degree in agriculture and nutrition policy from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. 

• Philip Brasher is Executive Editor of Agri-Pulse. He has reported on food and agriculture policy for more than 21 years in the nation’s capital. Prior to joining Agri-Pulse in 2014, he served as Editor of "CQ on Agriculture and Food" for CQ Roll Call. Brasher previously worked for The Associated Press, The Des Moines Register and Gannett. He has published reporting projects funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting on biotechnology in Africa and the U.S. government's Feed the Future program, an initiative to develop food production in some of the world’s poorest countries.

After the panel, Hochman and the council will entreat the audience to join a round of virtual Capitol Hill visits later this summer to the offices of attendees’ own congressional representatives and senators. The council will work closely with volunteers to schedule the visits and prepare topics.

As always, the council welcomes input on this or any programming, BoardChair@cfare.org.

This program is supported in part by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service.