Le Wang named David M. Kohl Chair

Le Wang, professor of agricultural and applied economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, has been named the David M. Kohl Chair by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The David M. Kohl Chair was established by James A. and Renae C. Pearson, proud and prominent Virginia Tech alumni. The Kohl Chair directs the Kohl Agribusiness Centre within the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and provides financial and intellectual support to advance teaching, research, and outreach in farm and agribusiness management.

The chair honors Professor Emeritus David M. Kohl for his 25 years as a professor of agricultural finance, small business management, and entrepreneurship in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. Kohl was a prominent Extension economist who routinely worked with agricultural producers, agribusiness firms, lenders, and policy makers to address practical problems that confronted Virginia’s farmers and agricultural sector.

Wang joined the Virginia Tech community this fall as a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. He has extensive experience and knowledge in applied economics and interdisciplinary research as well as quantitative methods focusing on causal inference, distributional and nonparametric econometrics, and data analytics and machine learning.

An accomplished scholar, Wang has consistently contributed to the development of rigorous methodological tools, innovative data-driven approaches, and their applications in economic analysis. His research examines a wide spectrum of public policy questions and problems, including inequality and economic mobility, education, the effects of food stamp programs, child nutrition and health in developing countries, environmental policies, and food aid.

Wang has written 36 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading economic journals and his research has been supported by Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Resources.

In his career, Wang’s research has been recognized with multiple awards and honors, including the Kuznets Prize from Journal of Population Economics that recognizes the best paper of the year published in the journal in 2018. He also received the Vice President for Research’s Award for Excellence in Transdisciplinary, Convergent Research at the University of Oklahoma in 2023 and was recognized with WSBE Outstanding Researcher Award at the University of New Hampshire in 2012.

Wang currently serves as a co-editor of China Economic Review and Journal of Labor Research and associate editor of Econometric Reviews. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Southern Economics Association and served on the board of directors of the Chinese Economist Society. He also serves as the director of Young Scholars Program of the Global Labor Organization and is a member of Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group at the University of Chicago.

Before joining Virginia Tech, Wang was a director of the master’s degree program in managerial economics, focusing on big data, at the University of Oklahoma. He is an avid advocate for data-analytics teaching curriculum that underscores the importance of both experiential learning and interdisciplinary approach.

Wang received his Ph.D. in economics from Southern Methodist University.