Professor Alan Collins is a distinguished academic in the field of Agricultural and Resource Economics at West Virginia University. Collins spent his formative years in the Western United States, primarily in Phoenix, Arizona, where his father worked for the Bureau of Land Management. His early exposure to natural resource management led him to pursue a degree in Natural Resource Economics from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Furthering his academic journey, he obtained his master's and doctoral degrees from Utah State University and Oregon State University, respectively.