The Southern Rural Development Center is excited to announce Dr. Roseanne Ellison Scammahorn as the new Associate Director for the Southern Rural Development Center, housed at Mississippi State University.
Originally from Darke County, Ohio, Dr. Scammahorn is a graduate of Faith Christian High School. She received her bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership and MBA in Management, Innovation, and Change from Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She continued her education at Mississippi State University, earning an Educational Specialist degree in Counseling and a Doctorate in Extension and Agricultural Education where her dissertation examined the attrition risk of agricultural educators in the South.
Scammahorn joined the Southern Rural Development Center as a graduate research assistant in 2010. Her research focused on understanding poverty in the mid-south Delta region, entrepreneurship, and e-commerce. In 2018, she relocated to Ohio State University Extension and served as Darke County’s SNAP-Ed Program Assistant and Family and Consumer Sciences Educator III. During her time at Ohio State, she created and taught programming on healthy relationships, finance, and healthy communities. In 2023, she relocated to Mississippi for the role of Extension Research Associate III for the Southern Rural Development Center and supported the outreach efforts for the Understanding Heirs’ Property at the Community Level team, the National Digital Education Extension Team, and the Program Leadership Network.
As Associate Director, Scammahorn will lead the Center’s outreach-oriented activities as well as uphold its mission to strengthen the capacity of the region’s 30 Land-Grant Universities to address critical contemporary rural development issues impacting the well-being of people and communities in the South. “I look forward to supporting our national, regional, and local partners and educators in our collective efforts to create resilient communities, improve holistic well-being, and foster healthy collaborations. I am excited to serve others, helping them to live their best lives,” said Dr. Scammahorn.
The Regional Rural Development Centers are a trusted source of economic and community development data, decision tools, education, and guidance for our nation’s rural communities.
Collectively, the Centers form a one-stop-shop connection to the nationwide network of Land-Grant Universities and the Cooperative Extension Service. Each Center serves a U.S. region and taps its Land-Grant University network to form innovative research and Extension partnerships in the area of rural development.
Together, the Regional Rural Development Centers help rural communities make science-based decisions about their community and economic development investments.
There are four Regional Rural Development Centers in the United States: Northeast Regional Center hosted by Pennsylvania State University, North Central Regional Center hosted by Purdue University, Western Rural Center hosted by the University of Idaho, and the Southern Rural Center hosted by Mississippi State University. For more information about the Regional Rural Development Centers go to https://ag.purdue.edu/rrdc/. For more information about the Southern Rural Development Center go to https://srdc.msstate.edu/ .
Dr. Roseanne Ellison Scammahorn is the daughter of Harry and Rosemarie Ellison of Ansonia, and daughter-in-law of Ronald and Kay Scammahorn of Bradford.