CARD: Center for Agricultural and Rural Development

David Hennessy is a professor in the Department of Economics and Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, where he leads programs of research on industrialization in agriculture, roles of information in farm-level production decisions, the provision of safe food, and animal disease economics. Hennessy received his bachelor's (1987) and master's degrees (1989) in agricultural science in his native Ireland at the University College Dublin, National University of Ireland. He worked as a civil servant for the Irish Government during 1988-'89 before emigrating to the United States. He received his Ph.D. in agricultural economics at Iowa State University in 1993.

Before joining the economics faculty at Iowa State University, Hennessy was an agricultural economist and assistant professor at Washington State University. The Iowa State University College of Agriculture awarded the “Early Achievement in Research” distinction to Hennessy for the 1999-2000 academic year. He is a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and currently serves as an editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. In addition to his research activities, he teaches or has taught courses in commodity market analysis, business economics, agribusiness management, demand and supply systems, and decision analysis.