Meet our Ph.D. Job Market Candidates

I am most passionate about how trade exposure, including events like the U.S.–China trade war, reshaped agricultural exports and created ripple effects across farm-level outcomes and related markets. This matters to me because trade policy isn’t just an abstract economic issue; it shows up directly in farm income, financial stability, market access, and the long-term health of rural communities.

Through my research, I hope to give policymakers evidence to design better trade and support policies, and help farmers and agribusinesses adapt to a changing global market.

Growing up around farming, and later working on agricultural research and outreach projects, I saw how much farming communities’ lives are shaped by policy decisions, market uncertainty, and access to information. I wanted to build the skills to answer those real-world questions with rigorous data and economic analysis.

A Ph.D. will let me combine my agricultural background with my interest in research and policy, while giving me the economic understanding and the right analytical tools to pursue my research goal.

I am most passionate about understanding how food-price shocks and agricultural trade policies move through supply chains and ultimately affect consumers. These shocks are often evaluated at the border or farm level, but their consequences depend on how prices are transmitted through wholesale and retail markets and on households’ ability to adjust their consumption. My goal is to provide evidence that helps policymakers better understand who ultimately bears the cost of agricultural and food-policy changes.

During my military service as a communications soldier near the inter-Korean border, I was exposed to conversations among North Korean soldiers that reflected severe food scarcity and malnutrition. Hearing people repeatedly discuss what they could find to eat made food insecurity a concrete human problem for me rather than an abstract policy issue. That experience led me toward agricultural and food economics. Later, while working at the Korea Rural Economic Institute, I conducted research on agricultural trade, international grain markets, and food-security policy.

These experiences motivated me to pursue a Ph.D. so that I could study these issues using rigorous economic theory and empirical methods.

I am most passionate about answering questions that affect large populations and carry strong policy implications. My job market paper is one example. It provides the first evidence on the economic cost of low-intensity storms in Vietnam, the frequent storms that rarely make it into official disaster records. Using local electricity records, I show these storms cause sharp and lasting drops in economic activity that standard satellite measures miss, and that the losses fall hardest on rural communities. Although I study Vietnam, the lessons apply to many low-income countries exposed to similar shocks.

My second line of work studies forcibly displaced populations in East Africa, across Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia, examining how the design of aid, camp policy, and interaction between host and displaced population shapes the local economy. This question matters now more than ever. Climate change and geopolitical conflict have pushed the number of forcibly displaced people to record highs, so large that, if they formed a single country, it would rank as the twelfth most populous in the world.

What draws me to these questions is scale and consequence. They affect millions of vulnerable people, and the answers can directly inform the policies meant to protect them. Looking ahead, I want to continue working at the intersection of environmental and development economics, studying the economic impact of environmental shocks and policies.

Throughout this work, I aim to provide evidence that is data-driven and econometrically rigorous.

Before my Ph.D., I spent more than three years at the Verghese Kurien Policy Lab at IRMA in India, working with rural cooperatives, running surveys, and conducting field experiments across the country. That experience taught me to think like an economist, and it showed me how much good evidence can shape real policy. I wanted to know not just what was happening, but why, and when a program truly causes the changes we observed. I pursued a Ph.D. to learn to design my own research questions and to build the rigorous, data-driven tools needed to answer them credibly.

The problem I keep coming back to is that decision-makers across the agri-food value chain, whether lenders, policymakers, agribusinesses, or producers, are often forced to act on information that is fragmented, lagging, or too complex to use. Agriculture generates enormous amounts of financial and market data, but raw data is not the same as usable insight, and the gap between the two has real consequences: downturns that catch the sector off guard, costly emergency interventions, and credit and policy decisions made on conflicting signals. What I’m passionate about is closing that gap by turning complex financial data into rigorous, timely measures that people can actually act on. My job market paper is one example, a monthly index of farm financial conditions, but the same problem shows up everywhere I work, from forecasting food price inflation to reading risk in futures markets. The reason it matters to me is simple: better information changes real decisions, and in agriculture those decisions ripple from the farm gate to the grocery store.

It started with a professor. As an undergraduate finance student, I had an advisor whose enthusiasm made the subject so engaging that I pursued my own independent study. I wanted to inspire students the same way, so I initially pursued a Ph.D. to teach, with research as a secondary goal.

To gain real-world experience, I joined the Peace Corps as an economic development volunteer in Timor-Leste. There, I worked with a savings and loan cooperative and partnered with coffee farmers to develop a specialty coffee strategy that attracted more buyers and higher prices. Later, I co-founded a vanilla cooperative that helped farmers access a volatile but lucrative market.

Those experiences shifted my focus from finance to agricultural economics, where I could study markets and financial institutions while addressing challenges facing farmers. The questions I study today — market power in agri-food supply chains, commodity price volatility, and farm financial health — are the same ones I first encountered in those mountains.

I am passionate about helping people make better decisions about managing natural resources and adapting to environmental challenges. My research has focused on aquaculture production, oyster reef restoration, and farm financial management because these issues affect both livelihoods and the environment.

Outside of research, I enjoy practicing yoga. It has taught me that balance is not about maximizing an outcome at the expense of everything else but about finding harmony among competing priorities. I bring that same perspective to my work as an economist, where many of the most important decisions involve balancing economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and community well-being. I enjoy using economic perspective and data to help farmers, policymakers, and communities balance economic needs with environmental stewardship. What motivates me most is knowing that my research can contribute to solutions that are both economically viable and environmentally responsible.

I pursued a Ph.D. in Economics because I believe every important decision involves costs, benefits, and trade-offs. I wanted to develop research skills to understand those trade-offs and generate evidence that helps individuals, businesses, and policymakers make more informed decisions.

I am passionate about applying economic research to solve real-world problems that directly affect people’s well-being, particularly in areas such as food safety and economic development. These issues influence millions of lives, yet they often require careful analysis to design effective policies and business strategies.

Through my Ph.D., I have learned how to use empirical methods to identify causal relationships and generate evidence that can support better decision-making. More importantly, I want to carry this analytical mindset beyond academia. Whether I work in an international organization, a research institute, or the private sector, I hope to use data-driven research to help organizations make informed decisions that improve food systems, promote sustainable development, and create positive economic impacts.

I pursued a Ph.D. because I wanted to develop the skills to analyze complex problems in a systematic and evidence-based way. I have always been curious about how economic policies and market forces shape people’s lives, and doctoral training has given me the tools to investigate those questions. Along the way, I realized that what motivates me most is using the research skills, critical thinking, and problem-solving mindset I developed during my Ph.D. to tackle practical challenges. Looking ahead, I am excited to bring these skills to places where I can contribute to solving important economic and social issues.