Date of birth
January 6, 1962

Place of birth
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Undergraduate studies

• B.Sc. MacDonald College of McGill University, Major in Agricultural Economics (1984)
• M.Sc. University of Manitoba, Major in Agricultural Economics (1986)

Graduate studies
Institute of Econometrics at the Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel. Doctor of the Agricultural Economics, speciality in Economics and Social Sciences of the cultivation (1992)

Habilitation
Institute of Econometrics at the Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel. Doc. habil. in the sucjects Econometrics and Applied Econometrics (1998)

Other activities

• Member of the Senate of the University of Göttingen (from April 2025)
• Member of the Scientific Commission ‚Life Sciences' of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 2025)
• Secretary-Treasurer of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE)
• Distinguished Foreign Professor Nanjing Agricultural University (2014-2018)
• Member of the Policy Expert Committee (PEC) of the International School of Economics, Tbilisi State University (ISET), Georgia
• Member of the "Centre of Biodiversity and sustainable Land Use"
• Principal Investigator Research Training Group (RTG 2654) “Sustainable Food Systems”"

Other interests
Rugby, Thomas Tallis, gardening, the "Ranch" in Canada