Nicole Olynk Widmar is a Professor and Department Head of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. Her research examines decision-making in food and agricultural systems, with particular emphasis on farm business management, production economics, consumer demand, public perception, and digital trace data. A central focus of her research is consumer perceptions of livestock-derived food products and the implications of changing demand for product and production-process attributes. She integrates consumer insights into agricultural production and management models to evaluate how market signals, public attitudes and emerging information influence decisions throughout the food and agricultural system.

Working across disciplines, Nicole conducts applied research that supports on-farm decision-making related to technology adoption, production practices, purchased-input management, and the assessment of producers’ costs and benefits. Her broader research program uses survey, market, media, search, social, and other digital trace data to understand how public attention and consumer preferences translate into economic behavior and management implications for agricultural producers and food-system stakeholders. This research is also featured through Consumer Corner, a series of publications that explores consumer demand, food purchasing behavior and the economic implications of changing preferences for the food and agricultural sector.

Nicole earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University, where her graduate research examined agricultural producers’ responses to changing consumer demand for production-process attributes. She earned her B.S. in Animal Science from Cornell University.