Graduate Research Assistant | PhD Candidate, Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University
Broad interests:
Production economics
International trade & policy
Environmental economics
Current research:
Trade, deforestation, and land‑use change in global agriculture
What I Work On (and How)
Dissertation: International Agriculture Trade, Deforestation and Global Agricultural Markets
EU deforestation regulation and global soy markets
Export demand, land prices, and forest‑to‑farm conversion (focus on Brazil)
Methods & tools:
Spatial data (GIS, transport networks, land‑use maps)
Econometrics & causal inference (Stata, R, some Python)
Policy evaluation & international trade models
How I See My Role as Your Mentor
Helping you turn broad interests into a doable research question.
Guidance on:
Chosing a topic/research question you care about
Conducting a literature review
Survey administration and data collection
Choosing and accessing public data if required
Simple but solid empirical designs (descriptive stats, regressions, mapping)
Writing a clear, structured report and presentation
What I value:
Clear question > fancy methods
Honest discussion of limitations and uncertainty
Transparent and reproducible output
Questions for You
So we can design good projects…
1. Interests & Motivation
“What environmental or natural resource problem do you care about most right now?
Is it water, land use, biodiversity, environmental justice, climate, something else?”
“When you think about Kansas, what’s one environmental issue you think is under‑studied as well as important?”
2. Skills & Comfort Zones
“Who here enjoys working with data—spreadsheets, R, Python, GIS—or wants to learn more?”
“Who prefers more field‑based or qualitative work—interviews, surveys, case studies?”
Questions for You (contd..)
3. Scale & Place
“Are you more interested in local questions (a specific watershed, county, or site) or in how Kansas connects to national or global issues (like trade, climate, or federal policy)?”
4. Outcomes & Policy
“Do you want your project to be more about understanding patterns (what is happening and where), or more about evaluating policies/solutions (does this regulation or program seem to work)?”
5. Your Expectations
“What is one skill you hope to practice or improve this semester—e.g., coding, GIS, writing, presenting, working in a team?”
Example Project Themes
These are just examples to spark ideas; adjust to your interests.
Idea 1: Mapping the spatial distribution of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands across Kansas and the Great Plains
Idea 2: Do soils under different management (e.g., pasture, no‑till, conventional till) show signs that they could store more carbon?
Idea 3: What do local farmers and landowners see as the main risks when grassland or CRP is converted to cropland (or when cropland is intensified)
Idea 4: Do we see more signs of wildlife (birds, insects, tracks, etc.) on conservation lands (like CRP) than on nearby regular crop fields?
Example Project Themes (contd.)
Idea 5: When asked directly, how do producers in a groundwater‑dependent area define “sustainable” water use and agriculture for their own operations and communities?
Idea 6: Do farmers who believe they are using “efficient irrigation” (e.g., drop nozzles, better scheduling) actually water less often or with lower depths per event, compared to neighbors with similar crops?
Idea 7: Who do farmers say they rely on for information and encouragement about irrigation and conservation decisions—neighbors, extension, crop consultants, co‑ops—and how does this relate to adoption of certain practices?
Idea 8: How do irrigation and cropping decisions reported by farmers differ inside vs. outside a Local Enhanced Management Area (LEMA) or other groundwater‑stressed zones?