Thomas Reardon is a distinguished professor of agricultural economics at Michigan State University. His research focus is on the links between international development and agribusiness/food industry. He researchers the transformation of agrifood systems (supermarkets, processing firms, wholesale and logistics, and agricultural support services) and their effects on farmer incomes, technology, and rural employment, and agrifood business strategies implementation of innovations via design of supply chains. He has researched value chains in Africa, Asia, and Latin America covering horticulture, fish, dairy, poultry, and grains. He has researched rural nonfarm employment and its links to food systems and agricultural technology adoption.

Reardon's recent and ongoing research is on rice and millet, poultry and feed, and processed maize value chains in Senegal, Nigeria, and Tanzania; fish value chains in Bangladesh, China, Myanmar; mango value chains in Indonesia; food consumption transformation in Africa and Asia; outsourced support services in mango and rice in Indonesia, China, Myanmar, and Nigeria; intermediate cities and rural territorial development in Latin America.

Reardon earned his M.S. is from Columbia University in 1979 and Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in 1984. He has served as a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C. and Rockefeller post-doctoral fellow in Burkina Faso attached to the University of Ouagadougou and ICRISAT.