Leadership

Sandro Steinbach is an Associate Professor of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University, where he has taught since the Fall of 2022 and directs the Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies. He is a Faculty Scholar of the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth and a Visiting Scholar and Consultant at the United States Department of Agriculture.​

 

He served on the Executive Board of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium and as a Guest Editor for the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, the European Review of Agricultural Economics, and Food Policy. He organized the 2024 IATRC Annual Meeting on "Sustainability and Agricultural Trade: Interplay between Climate Change and Trade of Agri-Food Products." Among other distinctions, Dr. Steinbach received the Outstanding Published Research Award from the Western Agricultural Economics Association in 2024, the Excellence in Research & Communication Award from the Food Distribution Research Society in 2021, and the Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award of the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy at the University of Connecticut in 2020. He was selected as the Agricultural Economics Trade and Sustainability Fellow of the Farm Foundation in 2024.

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Dr. Steinbach's teaching and research fields include agricultural policy, risk management, and international trade. His most recent work is focused on the implications of market and policy shocks on global supply chains and investment activities. He studies the interplay between market structures, firm conduct, and economic welfare at different spatial and institutional scales. His research uses applied economics and data science methods to answer research questions relevant to agribusinesses, international trade and policy, human and animal health, and the environment. Among many others, Dr. Steinbach's recent work has appeared in Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, Economics Letters, Food Policy, the NBER Working Paper Series, and Nature Communications. As of February 2025, he was ranked among the top 6% of economists based on publications over the past decade on RePEc. He is frequently interviewed by regional, national, and international media outlets.

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A citizen of Germany, Dr. Steinbach earned his BS degrees from the Humboldt University of Berlin and his MS degrees from the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of California, Davis. In 2018, he completed his doctoral studies in Economics with the Center for Economic Research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. He then joined the University of Connecticut as an Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Dr. Steinbach is married to Natia Sarauli and has three children (Eveline, Emma, and Anina).​