ERS Summer Interns
Photo: Stephen Peterson,
USDA/ERS
Some of the
2005 ERS Summer Interns
Front row (left to right): Chatavie
Newton, Gaurav Ghosh, Helen Waquiu
Middle row (left to right): Erdal
Kara, Elizabeth Ashley, Alba Marie Baez,
Jin Zhang, Cristian Lopez, Cheng Zhao,
Kara Lynch
Back row (left to right): Nicholas
Bradley, Madison Brown, Jason Moore, Mikael
Pyrtel, Chao Lin, James Whitaker
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Each summer, hundreds of college
and graduate students from all over the country
descend upon Washington, DC, to observe policymaking
from the vantage point of an internship. The benefits
to the interns are clear: access to the government’s
inner workings and key players and opportunities
to contribute to the formation, analysis, and operation
of policy. But their employers also benefit. For
a research agency like ERS, summer internships help
sow seeds for the future: by exposing students to
the interesting problems and potential contributions
of agricultural economics, ERS—and the discipline
as a whole—might reap sizable returns in the
longer term.
In 2005, ERS summer interns worked on a variety
of projects, from assessing the production impacts
of direct government payments to farmers, to compiling
a global demographics database for use in modeling
global food demand, to researching and developing
methods to better disseminate ERS research products.
Kara Lynch, a graduate student in agricultural economics
at Texas A&M University, analyzed ACNielsen
Homescan food purchase data. She and ERS economist
Ephraim Leibtag investigated the relationship between
household income and where households purchase food
(grocery stores, supercenters, etc.). In addition
to her analytical skills, Kara brought to the project
her experience as a Homescan panelist. “As
both a Homescan participant and a Homescan data
user, I was in the unique position of seeing the
survey process from both the data collection and
end user viewpoints. As a researcher, this experience
helps me appreciate the value of survey design and
the nuances of data analysis,” says Kara.
ERS interns represent different walks of life, as
befits the agency’s participation in programs
designed to attract academically qualified minority
students, including Hispanic Association of Colleges
and Universities Internship Program, Washington
Internships for Native Students (WINS), and USDA/1890
National Scholars Program. Helen Rain Waiquiu came
to ERS through the WINS program. A member of the
Sun Clan of the Pueblos of Jemez and Acoma in New
Mexico, Helen is studying environmental economics
at the University of California at Berkeley. Working
with ERS senior economist Elise Golan, Helen contributed
to a summary of ERS literature on the economics
of food choices, a topic that is of great interest
to her. “With the arrival of a fast-food chain
to my reservation, I became very interested in weighing
the economic costs and benefits of having such a
restaurant in our community, given the nationwide
epidemic of obesity and related conditions. My experience
at ERS not only will further my academic career,
but also will inform and shape my community development
efforts,” says Helen.
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