Marcus A. Coleman
Professor of Practice | Department of Economics
Biography
Marcus A. Coleman is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University with a joint appointment in the Department of Economics and the Strategy, Leadership, and Analytics Minor. Coleman is an experienced educator whose career is defined by a mixture of agriculture, food system, and student engagement roles. Growing up in Louisiana’s rural Mississippi River Delta region, Coleman was introduced early on to the disproportionate nature of the food system structure that often defines socially disadvantaged rural communities, which can lead to issues of accessibility, availability, and affordability related to food. These experiences led to Coleman’s interest in fostering equitable and sustainable food systems, via leadership development and community engagement, that are inclusively beneficial to all, economically, socially, environmentally, and politically. He received a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from Southern University, an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. in Agriculture and Extension Education from Louisiana State University.
Education
Louisiana State University
Michigan State University
Southern University
Links
Media Appearances
Talking Business: Economist Marcus Coleman asks if we rely too much on the Mississippi River
Marcus Coleman is a professor in Tulane University's economics department who sums up his academic and policy interest as "equity in food systems." Having grown up in a rural area in northeast Louisiana's Mississippi River Delta region, his main geographic area of interest are the cotton, rice, sugar cane and other farmlands of his home state.
Black farmers rethink Mississippi Delta's potential as climate change ravages California
When Marcus A. Coleman was in the agricultural economics graduate program at Michigan State University, several of his colleagues studied farming in the developing world. Coleman realized the problems they wanted to solve were the same ones found an hour away in Detroit. They were the same issues Coleman saw growing up in a small, predominantly Black town in the Louisiana corner of the Mississippi Delta. Coleman, now a professor at Tulane University, decided to focus his research closer to home.
Your Thanksgiving meal in Louisiana likely costs more this year. Here's why
Dr. Marcus Coleman, a visiting assistant professor at Tulane University with an academic background in agricultural economics, has observed this trend both on a personal level and on a macro scale.
On Their Ends: Years of flooding and catastrophic storms have Louisiana's seafood industry on the brink
Marcus Coleman, an assistant professor at Tulane University who specializes in food systems, says the state is already seeing short-term effects on seafood supply from the storm and that the industry will be dealing with long-term effects for the foreseeable future.
