News
For Immediate Release
Writer: Sharon Omahen (770) 229-3219 (sharono@uga.edu)
Sources: Octavio Ramirez (505) 646-3215
(oramirez@nmsu.edu),
Scott Angle (706) 542-3924
(caesdean@uga.edu).
Ramirez to lead agricultural and applied economics
The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences announces the appointment of Octavio A. Ramirez as head of the college's agricultural and applied economics department. Ramirez's appointment is effective June 1, 2008.
Octavio A. Ramirez"Dr. Ramirez is considered one of the leading agricultural economists in the U.S.," said J. Scott Angle, UGA CAES dean and director. "We are indeed fortunate that he has chosen to come to UGA and I am confident he will take the department of agricultural and applied economics to even greater success."
Since 2003, Ramirez has led the agricultural economics and agricultural business department at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM. Before his tenure at NMSU, Ramirez served as an associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX.
He began his academic career at CATIE, a prestigious international research and post-graduate education center that addresses tropical agriculture and natural resource management issues in Latin America. There he rose to the rank of research professor and head of environmental economics and sociology.
He holds a bachelor's degree in agriculture as well as master's and doctorate degrees in food and resource economics all from the University of Florida. Ramirez has published numerous papers in the flagship journals of his discipline, including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, as well as in many other prestigious disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals edited in the United States, Europe and Latin America.
Ramirez has also led research and extension grants and contracts totaling over $6 million, taught a variety of undergraduate, master's and doctorate level courses in econometrics and quantitative methods and directed the research of numerous graduate students.
"I am excited about working in the environment of academic excellence and high standards that prevails in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences," Ramirez said. "I will very much enjoy being part of an institution of the caliber of the University of Georgia. I am fully committed to elevating the already outstanding reputation of excellence of the department's teaching, research and extension programs."