Ann Markusen Headshot

As professor emerita of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Ann Markusen directed the Humphrey School’s Project on Regional and Industrial Economics. Her research focused on occupational approaches to regional development, and on artists, arts organizations, cultural industries, and cultural activity as regional economic and quality-of-life stimulants. Until her recent retirement, Markusen also served on the SNAAP Advisory Board as a founding member. 

Before joining the Humphrey School, Markusen was State of New Jersey Professor of Urban Planning and Policy Development at Rutgers University. She has held faculty positions at Northwestern, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Colorado. Markusen has been an economic policy fellow with the Brookings Institution and a research economist with the office of the Michigan Speaker of the House. She was a Fulbright Lecturer in regional development economics in Brazil and has written on European, Korean, and Japanese regional economies as well as on North American cities and regions.

From 1995 to 2002, she served as a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and in 2002, as a Visiting Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Markusen recently served three years as the Harvey Perloff Chair in the Urban Studies Department at UCLA, and a six year term as A. D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University. In 2010-11, she occupied the prestigious UK Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the Glasgow School of Art, working out of its Urban Lab.

Markusen served six years on the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy and as chair from 1998 to 2000. She was elected president of the North American Regional Science Association in 2000. In 2001-02, Markusen served as a member of the President’s Commission on Offsets in International Trade. She won the McCoy Award from the American Collegiate Schools of Planning in 2005, and the Prestigious Alonso Prize in regional science in 2006.

She holds doctorate and master degrees in economics from Michigan State University and an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.