Writer: Blair Fannin, 979-845-2259, b-fannin@tamu.edu
COLLEGE STATION – Dr. Bruce McCarl, a distinguished professor of agricultural economics at Texas A&M University, has been named a Texas AgriLife Research Senior Faculty Fellow.
The faculty fellows program, created in 1998, recognizes people who “have contributed to the scholarly creation and dissemination of new knowledge through exceptional research leadership and grantsmanship.” Professors and associate professors in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University, who hold a joint appointment with AgriLife Research, are eligible for the honor and $5,000 award.
McCarl was honored with Dr. Del Gatlin, fisheries researcher, and Dr. Dorothy Shippen, professor of biochemistry and biophysics, who also received Senior Faculty Fellow honors. Dr. Binayak Mohanty, professor of biochemistry and biophysics and Texas AgriLife Research scientist in College Station, who were named Faculty Fellows.
“I am extremely proud of these scientists whose studies have brought great advances in their fields and to the benefit of the public and our agency,” said Dr. Craig Nessler, AgriLife Research director. “Their scientific endeavors are yielding results that positively impact people in our state, nation and world.”
McCarl has specialized in the economics of climate change and how it affects agriculture. He is an internationally recognized scholar on climate change, El Niño, water, bioenergy, applied mathematical programming, risk analysis, and biosecurity – research topics of major importance to Texas, the U.S. and the globe, according to the award nomination.
McCarl shared the Nobel Peace Prize for climate change in 2007 with a team of scientists that were part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has been a faculty member in the department of agricultural economics at Texas A&M since 1985. He was named Distinguished Professor in 2007, Regents Professor in 2002 and Faculty Fellow for AgriLife Research in 2005.
He has been prominent in researching climate change effects, adaptation and mitigation, according to nominees. McCarl has served as the lead economic analyst on the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change and lead author in the first U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress.
McCarl was a panel member of the recently completed National Academy of Sciences America’s Climate Choices Study and has been invited to testify before Congress, making presentations to many stakeholder groups. He is a member of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, at which he served as lead author on the Working Group III Agricultural Mitigation chapter. The panel was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
McCarl is an appointed member of the 2013 Working Group II Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Adaptation team. He has published this work in Science, Nature, Bioscience, Climatic Change, American Journal of Agricultural Economics and leading journals.
Beyond his climate change program, he has investigated a number of other areas including agricultural sector analysis. McCarl developed modeling methods that were adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has become their principal methodology of analyzing many environmental policy issues since the early 1980s.
Published papers in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics have influenced professional use of price endogenous sector modeling, according to the award nomination.
McCarl’s 167 journal articles and the bulk of the research funding have occurred since he joined the faculty in 1985, according to the award nomination, “His program is not showing any signs of slowing down but rather is accelerating in citation, publication and funding measures.”
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