Mark Anner has been deeply engaged in advancing workers’ rights in global supply chains as a scholar and practitioner for more than three decades. After completing his undergraduate studies at Tufts University, he moved to Central America, where he spent a decade working with labor rights organizations. Escalating violence in El Salvador eventually compelled him to relocate to California, where he earned a master’s degree in Latin American studies from Stanford University.
 
Mr. Anner returned to El Salvador in the 1990s, and while there, he collaborated with labor unions and the Gap to help resolve a conflict at the Mandarin factory and then founded and directed the Independent Monitoring Group of El Salvador. He subsequently returned to the United States to pursue his PhD at Cornell University.
 
Mr. Anner went on to join the faculty at Penn State University, where he founded and directed the Center for Global Workers’ Rights. Then in 2024, he was appointed Dean and Distinguished Professor of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.
 
He is the author of more than 50 academic publications focused on workers’ rights and purchasing practices in global supply chains. Mr. Anner’s field research has taken him to Bangladesh, Brazil, Honduras, India, and Vietnam. Among his honors are the Susan C. Eaton Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award, the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award, the Luis Aparicio Emerging Scholar Prize, and the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching.