Director Robert Johnston of the Marsh Institute recently presided over the 2011 Joint Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource and Economics Association (NAREA), of which he is president.

The July conference, held in Pittsburgh, attracted over 1,200 participants. Along with traditional sessions, several special events included a preconference workshop on Economics and Child Nutrition, as well as a mentoring workshop on Early Career Development. The latter was designed to provide emerging scholars with the opportunities to develop skills essential to success — skills including best practices in grant writing, making presentations, writing manuscripts, and networking. Johnston and Jacqueline Geoghegan, Clark Professor of Economics and past-president of NAREA, played significant roles in these and many other conference events.

Other researchers from the Marsh Institute gave papers and workshops as well, giving Clark a strong presence at this major national conference.