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Biography
Dr. LaPorchia Collins is a food and agricultural economist at the Friedman School whose research advances food system equity by examining structural inequities across the agriculture‑food‑environment nexus. Her work integrates agricultural economics and policy analysis to assess how industry trends, government decisions, and economic shocks shape food and agricultural markets, while also identifying key drivers of food insecurity at local, national, and global scales.
Before joining Friedman, Dr. Collins served as a research agricultural economist at the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS), where she conducted research on livestock and animal product markets, including on topics such as livestock industry structure, farm management, and minority farm performance. Before ERS, Dr. Collins served as a senior professor of practice and director of undergraduate studies in economics at Tulane University.
