Mark A. Constas

Biography

Mark Constas is professor emeritus of applied economics and policy in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, and an international professor of agriculture and life sciences. He is a fellow of the Tata Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition and the Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

Constas’ research focuses on how resilience can be defined, measured and evaluated in development and humanitarian contexts. His work examines how households and communities in stressed and shock prone environments achieve and maintain well being, and how resilience can serve as a central concept for measurement and evaluation. He chaired the Resilience Measurement Technical Working Group, jointly coordinated by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program with support from the European Union and USAID. Under his leadership, the group produced papers that helped shape resilience measurement across development settings.

Constas also developed a methodology to improve the estimation of global food crisis trends in collaboration with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the European Union’s Joint Research Centre. He regularly serves on expert panels on food security and resilience and has advised multiple U.N. organizations. His research has appeared in leading journals, including Nature, World Development, Global Food Security and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as in publications for policy and development audiences.

Education

PhD Cornell University, 1987
BS Northeastern University, 1983

Research

• Blaise, Gloria; Allred, Shorna; Morreale, Stephen; Meredith, Genevieve; Sprenkle-Hyppolite, Starry; et al. "Exploring the Scalability of Community-Based Agroforestry to Achieve Planetary Health Benefits in Haiti’s Lower Artibonite Valley"PLoS Climate. (2024)
• Ampapore, Andrea; Constas, Mark; Fossi, Filippo; Gauny, Josselin; Marsland, Neil; Ulimwengu, John. "The Data in Emergencies (DIEM) Hub for evaluating multiple shock impacts on food security"Nature Food. 4 (2023): 628-629
• Béné, ​Christophe; Frankenberger, Timothy; Nelson, Suzanne; Constas, Mark; Collins, Gregory; et al. "Food system resilience measurement: principles, framework and caveats"Food Security. 15.6 (2023): 1437-1458
• Constas, Mark. "Food security and resilience: The potential for coherence and the reality of fragmented applications in policy and research"Resilience and Food Security - Analysis from a Food System Perspective, Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy Series, Ed. Christophe Béné, Ed. Stephen Devereux. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. (2023): 147-184
• Constas, Mark; d'Errico, Marco; Pietrelli, Rebecca. "Toward Core Indicators for Resilience Analysis: A framework to promote harmonized metrics and empirical coherence"Global Food Security. 35 (2022): 100655
• Constas, Mark; Mattioli, Laura; Russo, Luca. "What does resilience imply for development practice? Tools for more coherent programming and evaluation of resilience"Development Policy Review. 39.4 (2021): 588-603
• Constas, Mark; d'Errico, Marco; Hoddinott, John; Pietrelli, Rebecca. "Resilient food systems – A proposed analytical strategy for empirical applications"Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2021. Food and Agriculture Organization. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 21-10 (2021): 46pp
• Jones, Lindsey; Constas, Mark; Mathews, Nathanial; Verkaart, Simone. "Advancing resilience measurement"Nature Sustainability. 4 (2021): 288-289
• Constas, Mark; Wohlgemuth, Max; Ulimwengu, John. "A measurement approach for a health systems-sensitive resilience score: Measuring progress toward the Malabo Declaration goals in the midst of COVID-19"Building resilient African food systems after COVID-19, Ed. John Ulimwengu, Ed. Mark Constas, Ed. Éliane Ubalijoro. AKADEMIYA2063 and International Food Policy Research Institute. (2021): 156-170
• Knippenberg, Erwin; Jensen, Nathaniel; Constas, Mark. "Quantifying household resilience with high frequency data: Temporal dynamics and methodological options"World Development. 121 (2019): 1-15