Wendy Umberger

Biography

Professor Wendy Umberger is the Executive Director of the Centre for Global Food & Resources at the University of Adelaide. The program was officially launched in 2013 and focuses on economic issues affecting global food and agricultural value chains. Wendy is currently leading components of interdisciplinary value chain research projects in Asia, Australia, North America, the Pacific Islands and South Africa exploring opportunities for agricultural smallholder households in producing high value (horticulture, dairy, beef) food products and adopting new technology to gain access to modern food value chains. Part of this work includes estimating consumer demand for specific credence (quality, safety and health) attributes in food and determining efficient governance systems to verify related attributes. She is also studying the impact of urbanisation, modern retail transformation and development programs on food consumption patterns, diet quality and longer-run health and livelihood implications in Indonesia and Fiji. Wendy’s research uses innovative methods to understand drivers of consumer and producer behaviour and the implications of changing behaviour for global food systems. This includes research to understand how individual and household characteristics such as demographics, socio-economics, attitudes, values and knowledge, affect future food demand and supply shifts, diet transformation and related health changes, and drive adoption and uptake of technology, both at the food production and consumption stages. This information is particularly helpful for translation of research and design of more efficient food policy programs. Professor Umberger has published extensively and has been invited to present her work internationally to a variety of audiences including industry, government and academic. Wendy received her B.S. in Animal Science (1996) and M.S. in Economics (1998) from South Dakota State University and her PhD in Agricultural Economics (2001) from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to joining the University of Adelaide in 2006, Wendy was an Assistant and Associate Professor from 2001-2007 in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University in the USA. She was raised on a beef cattle farm, which is still owned and operated by her family in South Dakota USA.

Research Interest

Medicine,Medical Education,Research,etc