The Cooperative Extension Specialists in the Department are central to this function. They conduct applied research and related educational programs that help a wide variety of rural and urban clientele to solve practical problems. Their work both serves and draws upon community organizations, agricultural producers and their trade associations, other resource users and managers, and public agency officials at the state, federal and local levels . While Specialists often collaborate with and complement the on-campus teaching faculty, they also supplement the fields of expertise in the Department. Ongoing extension programs include economic impacts of public policies, resource use and policy, labor management, economics of pest management, environmental protection, international trade and competition, and regional development.
Specialists frequently advise or supervise graduate students on work in their fields.
Specialists are part of the statewide U.C. Cooperative Extension network of some 450 academic staff, including county-based Farm Advisors, Home Advisors and Youth Advisors, and Specialists at other campuses and research stations. These extension colleagues and their local clientele are important sources of critical questions that stimulate needed research and extension activities. George E. Goldman , M.S., Operations Research, M.I.T., 1959. Economic models of counties and regions in California and the application of these models to policy problems and resource issues, agricultural land use, rural poverty, and economic diversity. Howard R. Rosenberg , Ph.D., Business Administration, U.C. Berkeley, 1980.