Subbiah Kannappan was a faculty member in the Department from 1961 until his retirement in 1999.
Kann (as he was known to many) was born in 1927 in Tamil Nadu, India. He earned an MA first class in economics and political science at Madras University. He then traveled to Switzerland and the U.S. for advanced education in French studies and international relations and law, eventually finishing his Ph.D. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. That was followed by a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1959. Before coming to MSU, he worked as the Director of Research for the Xavier Labor Relations Research Institute. Initially, Professor Kannappan had a joint appointment in the Department of Economics and the School of Labor and Industrial Relations.
His research focused on labor and industrialization in developing countries and especially urban labor markets in developing countries. Accomplishments included publication of the book “Employment Problems and the Urban Labor Market in Developing Nations” in 1983, and a Senior Fulbright Scholarship in 1985 working on the topic of the Implementation of a Videotex System in New Zealand.
He was a founder and core interdisciplinary faculty member of the Center for the Advanced Study of International Development at MSU.
Kannappan lived in East Lansing. He died in 2005.