Dr. Chuck Benbrook, an agricultural economist with Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, has been appointed to the Organic Center’s new 24-member Science Advisory Board. He is the only one located in the Pacific Northwest.

The center’s mission is to conduct research on the benefits of organic food and farming and communicate those benefits to the public. The center is administered by the Organic Trade Association based in Washington, D.C.

Benbrook served as the Organic Center’s chief scientist from 2006 to 2012 and he still serves as a consultant.

Also appointed to the board are:

Catherine Badgley, University of Michigan; Asa Bradman, University of California, Berkeley; Jeffrey Blumberg, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts; Andre Brito, University of New Hampshire; Patrick Carr, North Dakota State University; Cindy Daley, California State University, Chico; Kathleen Delate, Iowa State University; Eric Gallandt, University of Maine; Nguyen Hue, University of Hawaii; Molly Jahn, Warren Porter, and Erin Silva, all at the University of Wisconsin; Carlo Leiffert, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom; Alex Lu, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;  Bruce Maxwell, Montana State University; Charles Mohler, Cornell University, New York; Joji Muramoto and Alex Racelis,  University of Texas Pan American; Chris Reberg-Horton, North Carolina State University; Jim Riddle, The Ceres Trust, Northfield, Minnesota; Phil Stansly and Danielle Treadwell, University of Florida; and Mark Williams, University of Kentucky.

Read short biographies of the advisory board members on the Organic Center’s Web site.