Kristin Kiesel

Kristin Kiesel is the associate dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs and a professor of teaching in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ARE). She teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes, including behavioral economics, marketing, cooperative business enterprises, and agricultural commodity markets. A common theme runs through her scholarship activities and research published in top research and teaching journals. They address market failures, inefficiencies and inequities resulting from information asymmetries. Kiesel’s research utilizes quasi-natural and lab-in-the field experiments to analyze labeling policies, marketing efforts and more restrictive policies such as soda bans and taxes. 

She helped launch and co-directs Diversity and Inclusion in Research, Education, and Career Training(DIRECT) program, a comprehensive outreach and support program that aims to attract and lower barriers to academic success for historically underrepresented students in applied and agricultural economics. Utilizing a question-driven, peer-, and project-based teaching approach, she emphasizes that learning is an active, experiential, and collaborative process. Kiesel strives to create inclusive learning environments that empower her students to think critically and creatively about sustainability and equity concerns while re-establishing a basic level of trust that she is invested in their individual and collective successes.

Kiesel is also one of the leaders of inclusive coffee chats for educators, a program that focuses on how to better serve and ensure a sense of belonging for all students. 

In addition to advising a large number of students, collaborating with industry stakeholders and serving on a variety of advisory boards for community organizations, Kiesel also served as the chair of the AAEA-Teaching, Learning, and Communication section from 2019-2021, on the AAEA Teaching Task Force during COVID, and on the AAEA’s Distinguished Teaching Awards review committee for the last three years. She was nominated as the 2023 faculty commencement speaker, received the AAEA-FSN Outstanding Economics Paper Award and ASUCD Excellence in Education Award in 2024, and the CWAE-AAEA Senior Mentorship and Outreach Award in 2025. She just recently received the USDA Excellence in College and University Teaching in Food and Agricultural Sciences Award.

Kiesel holds a M.A. in Communication Sciences (TU Berlin) and a M.S. in Applied and Agricultural Economics from Montana State University, Bozeman, received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, completed a joint post-doc at Berkeley and Stanford, and was promoted to associate professor in the economics department at Sacramento State before joining ARE in 2015. associate dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs