Max Pfeffer named associate director of Ag Experiment Station in Ithaca

Pfeffer

Max J. Pfeffer, professor of rural sociology at Cornell, has been named associate director of the university's Agricultural Experiment Station in Ithaca. His appointment became effective Feb. 16.

Pfeffer will work with Daniel J. Decker, director of the experiment station, and colleagues in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), the College of Human Ecology and the College of Veterinary Medicine in supervising research. This research includes agriculture and food systems, rural community and economic development, and natural resources and the environment. Also, Pfeffer will work closely with leadership of Cornell Cooperative Extension, where a prime responsibility will include the development of applied research as it pertains to the university's land-grant mission.

"Max is well-respected and will be an asset to our leadership team as we move forward with environmental program development and continue to better focus our social science expertise on key issues facing New York, the region and beyond," said Susan A. Henry, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of CALS.

Pfeffer's expertise is in environmental management, with a special emphasis on watersheds and protected areas, and rural labor markets. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Social Science Research Council and the Aspen Institute. His research in New York includes studies of volunteerism in local watershed protection in the Susquehanna River Basin and immigrant integration in rural communities.

His current international work includes local responses to protected-area creation in Central America and interdisciplinary research on poverty and environmental degradation in Kenya.

Pfeffer joined Cornell in 1993 as an assistant professor in the Department of Rural Sociology. He became an associate professor in 1996 and professor in 2002. He is a member of the American Sociological Association, the Rural Sociological Society, the Eastern Sociological Society and the American Water Resources Association.