Press Release
IIFET is an international professional association of individuals, institutions and agencies from over 65 countries. IIFET Fellows are selected because they have made substantial, long-term, ongoing contributions to the advancement and development of theoretical and/or empirical economics of fisheries, aquaculture and/or seafood trade, as evidenced by research, teaching, academic service, and/or policy impacts.
We are pleased to announce that Professor Cathy A. Roheim has been selected as one of two Fellows chosen for 2018, and will give a keynote address at the biennial IIFET 2018 Conference in Seattle, Washington.
Building on her expertise in demand for agricultural products, Dr. Roheim was the first researcher to develop a systematic and holistic research program on seafood markets and trade. She has made transformative contributions in this field in research, outreach, public service, and mentoring of students. Throughout her career, Dr. Roheim has asked research questions that ultimately make a difference by informing better governance of fisheries and aquaculture operations in an increasingly globalized world.
She was among the first to use demand systems to investigate the demand for seafood. This work, which contributed methodological developments of broad importance in market research, was published in a series of papers in Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE), Marine Resource Economics (MRE) and other journals. Dr. Roheim produced some of the first empirical work on the global market for wild-caught and farmed fish. Her work, while significant for its technical innovation, also augured the globalization of seafood markets.
Professor Roheim was an early innovator in analyses of costs and benefits of fisheries and aquaculture certification and eco-labeling in the seafood market. Her theoretical work examines how willingness to pay for sustainability is transmitted through the supply chain, and produced an early (and to date almost the only) contribution demonstrating the theoretical links between certification and fisheries management. She pioneered stated preference work on seafood labels after the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was created but before it was introduced into the market. As certification and labeling developed, she began econometric analysis of retail scanner data and later studied impacts of certification on ex-vessel prices.
Dr. Roheim contributed substantially to the interdisciplinary literature addressing the complex policy challenges at the nexus of common-pool resource governance, food security, and trade policy and the practical limits of affecting change through consumer campaigns and certification institutions. Her work at the intersection of health economics and seafood demand used experimental methods to evaluate how consumers trade off health risks and benefits when making seafood purchases, and drew out the implications for government programs promoting healthy seafood choices. She has published over 50 peer reviewed journal publications and numerous book chapters including papers in leading multidisciplinary journals such as Science. Her work has had a profound impact on fellow researchers as evidenced by high citation rates. She has been a strong and devoted mentor of graduate students, and published extensively with her students before and after they completed their degree.
Dr. Roheim also stands out for her effective outreach efforts that bridge the gap between research and practice. Much of this work builds on her intellectual leadership in seafood markets to make pragmatic contributions to the development of fisheries and aquaculture certification and eco-labeling, serving, for example, as the economist on MSC’s advisory council from 1999—2007 and subsequently on their board of trustees 2006-07. She contributed to discussions of certification’s role in international seafood markets serving on advisory boards for, among others, Ocean Outcomes, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, and FAO’s WorldFish Center, and contributed grey literature on international seafood trade policy for the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, World Bank, and Food and Agricultural Organization.
Dr. Roheim has held adjunct positions at the Universities in Tromsö and Ås, as well as serving on several dissertation examining committees for Norwegian universities. She served as IIFET Executive committee member and President of IIFET. She is currently President Elect of the North American Association of Fishery Economists (NAAFE), and was Editor-in-Chief of MRE from 1995-1998. She has served as, associate editor of the AJAE and several other agricultural economics journals. Her contributions and stature in both fisheries economics and in agricultural economics helped to bridge the fields and shape our understanding of how fish in the water end up as seafood on the plate.
For further information, contact:
Ann L. Shriver
Executive Director
International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade
Oregon State University
Department of Applied Economics
Corvallis, OR, 97331 3601
USA
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +1 541 737 1416