News Release Distributed 04/24/13
BATON ROUGE, La. – Matt Fannin, an associate professor in the LSU AgCenter Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, has been appointed as associate director for analytic and academic programs in the Rural Policy Research Institute.
RUPRI is a national policy institute headquartered in the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. Its mission is to provide objective analysis and facilitate public dialogue on the rural effects of public policies and programs.
“RUPRI is honored that Matt Fannin has accepted this leadership position, which will significantly enhance our commitment in regional economic analysis, as we build the national collaboration needed to support research programming under a new cooperative agreement with the Office of the Chief Economist, USDA,” said Charles W. Fluharty, RUPRI president.
In his capacity, Fannin will provide additional leadership to RUPRI’s academic and analytic programs.
“I’ll be adding to RUPRI's existing analytic capacity by broadening to a national policy audience the economic performance and financial disaster resiliency indicators I developed in Louisiana,” Fannin said. “I also hope to identify best practices of rural policies in other regions of the country through my work in RUPRI and apply them here to improve the livelihoods of Louisiana rural residents.”
“Over the last decade, Dr. Fannin has established a strong record of applied policy research and analysis at local, state and national levels,” said Tom Johnson, director of RUPRI’s Analytic and Academic Programs. “He is a respected scholar in regional and policy economics. We are very pleased that he has agreed to lend his considerable talents to RUPRI’s efforts to add more rigor to regional and rural policy analysis.”
Fannin has a wide research background that includes work on intellectual property in rural regions and on the effects of the Critical Access Hospital program on efficient delivery of health care in rural areas.
His current research focuses on the role of public sector investments in rural wealth creation and disaster resiliency. His research has been funded by numerous federal agencies including U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Interior and Commerce.
Rick Bogren