Meet Olga Isengildina Massa

The Kazakhstan native grew up with a deep love for reading and a desire to understand the different cultures around the world, not just her own. This passion and drive were why she chose English Philology as her undergraduate major at Tashkent State University in Uzbekistan, which educates future English translators and foreign language teachers.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1993, Massa, who is fluent in Russian (her native language) and English and speaks some Italian and French, worked with groups and organizations from around the world as a translator.

During a chance work assignment, she met professors from Mississippi State University’s Department of Agricultural Economics. The professors were working with the World Bank Group on a project to develop the cotton industry in Uzbekistan.

Massa impressed these professors so much, that they invited her to come to study Agricultural Economics in the States. Massa didn’t come from a traditional agricultural background, but she accepted the opportunity and jumped on a plane with $500 in her pocket.

The published paper from the project
COTTON INDUSTRY IN UZBEKISTAN:
STRUCTURE AND CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
Olga Isengildina, Research Assistant
Cary W. Herndon, Professor and Economist
O.A. Cleveland, Professor and Market Specialist
Department of Agricultural Economics
Mississippi State University

Massa recalls the $500 didn’t go very far, and she had to struggle.

“I am grateful to Dr. O.A. Cleveland who took me under his wing to make sure I succeeded. He and his family got me through the culture shock I was experiencing.”

Massa would later receive her master’s in agricultural economics in 1996 and Ph.D. in agricultural economics with a minor in finance in 2000, both from Mississippi State University.

The university that gave her such a great opportunity and agricultural economics platform, is also where she met her husband.

“After meeting my husband, we seemed to take turns following each other’s career paths.”

After Mississippi State University, Massa went to the University of Georgia as a post-doctoral research associate. Her journey then took her to the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as a visiting scholar where she met her mentor.

“I learned everything I know now due to Scott Irwin. He has been my mentor my whole academic life.” Irwin is a professor and the Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

“Olga impressed me from the outset when she arrived at the University of Illinois. She was bright, motivated, hard-working, and an excellent writer.  Everything you would hope to see in a young researcher. She has demonstrated those qualities time and again in the many joint research projects we have conducted over the years. I count myself very lucky to have worked with such a talented person. If that were not enough, she is an exceptionally nice person and just plain fun to work with,” said Irwin.

Massa also worked at Clemson University as an assistant professor before being promoted to associate professor and at the University of Texas Arlington as an associate clinical professor prior to finding her home at Virginia Tech.

“Virginia Tech was perfect because it offered my husband a top-notch aerospace engineering program as well as a globally ranked agricultural and applied economics department for me.”

The John B. and Kristi L. Rowsell Professor and faculty advisor to the Commodity Investing by Students organization, also known as COINS, is proud that she can use her experience and education to prepare students for real careers, using real examples, and real data.

Massa’s leadership has grown the program from 12 to over 60 members and now has an active advisory board.

As Massa looks into the future she hopes to see a graduate field in price analysis and risk management offered in the department. “This is an important area and very much in high demand.”

A program of this type would provide graduates with the quantitative skills needed to analyze agricultural commodities – hedging methods, price forecasting, and fundamental, technical, and risk analysis.

I asked Massa what was something about her that everyone would be surprised to know.

“I never learned how to ride a bicycle. Growing up we lived on the 4^th floor and no one in the family wanted to carry a bike up and down that many flights of stairs!”

Lastly, and here comes the title of the profile, I asked Massa if she wrote a book about her career what would she name the book?

“Expect the unexpected”

Massa never knew she would be doing something outside her country and says that ‘when life presents different opportunities, embrace them. The sky is the limit and always’—you guessed it… ‘expect the unexpected.’