Motivated and involved, AAEA GSS chair-elect Megan Hughes discusses many opportunities available in Ag Econ
“One piece of advice I always share with incoming graduate students is to jump on every opportunity to work with faculty outside of your committee so that you can learn different styles and grow your network" - Megan Hughes
Megan Hughes is in the second year of her Ph.D. program and is already making big moves. Just this past year she was elected as the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Graduate Student Section (AAEA GSS) chair-elect for 2021-22 and will be the chair for 2022-23.
That puts Megan in charge of organizing track sessions at AAEA, as well as other programming aimed at providing graduate students with professional development and career advancement opportunities. She chose to run for the position because she wants to help students on both the academia and non-academic career track. “I have a lot of ideas for new services that we (AAEA) can provide, specifically for students who have career goals outside of academia,” said Megan. “This upcoming year, I am hoping to develop a series highlighting AAEA members outside of academia and what types of careers they have, both at the PhD and MS level.”
In August, Megan attended the 2021 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas where she presented two papers: “A Comparison of Conservation Incentives Under Long-Run Yield Uncertainty and Farmer Risk Aversion” and “U.S. Milk Price Leadership Among Production Leaders.” She was even able to take in the sights of Austin, during a short bike tour with others who were attending the conference.
Megan also took part in the ERS Ag Scholars program to learn about employment opportunities with the federal government. The two-week trip was funded by the AgEcon department. She was also selected as a USDA Future Leader in Agriculture and was able to attend the USDA Ag Outlook Forum. There she met then Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue (see picture above, right) and Purdue PhD alumni, Mark Jekanowski (see picture above, left), chairman of the World Agricultural Outlook Board.
Hughes is also active in the department. Last year she served on the AgEcon Graduate Student Organization as one of the social chairs. She is also a graduate student research assistant and recently worked with Dr. Carson Reeling and Dr. Meilin Ma to look at the design of vertical coordination strategies to incentivize the use of best management practices (BMPs) for conservation. “Our goal was to understand what type of coordination strategy- direct payments or yield insurance- would best encourage farmers to adopt the use of cover crops.” She also worked on an analysis of carbon sequestration with Dr. Nathan Thompson and is working with Dr. Ma and Dr. Mindy Mallory to publish a course term paper.
Says Hughes, “One piece of advice I always share with incoming graduate students is to jump on every opportunity to work with faculty outside of your committee so that you can learn different styles and grow your network.”
Hughes says her faculty advisors, Drs. Reeling and Ma have set the bar high, but have been supportive and motivated her to achieve as much as possible during her first year in the Ph.D. program. Now in her second year, Hughes is finishing up required courses for her degree and taking additional courses to complete a certificate program in Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication. This semester she will also be shifting her focus from preparing for prelims to preparing for prospectus and is developing the research questions that will comprise her dissertation.