2019 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Submitted by Ellen E Gregoire on
Anni Hong explaining bank discrimination against minority owned business loans

On Friday, May 17th, eighteen economics students presented at the 2019 Undergraduate Research Symposium. This annual symposium gives undergraduates a chance to showcase their research to a larger audience. Students may choose to present a poster, or give an oral presentation. Students are guided by a faculty mentor. Because some of the presenters are double majors, their mentors were not always faculty from the Department of Economics, and some studies represented an intersection of economics with another discipline.

This year, a special oral session was dedicated to “Economics Issues,” and was moderated by Michelle Turnovsky. All of the students, but one, selected to present in this session were from our department.

Among the presenters were six Departmental Honors students whose research originated in Assistant Professor Griffith’s honors class last fall. The topics researched covered family economics, wage and bank discrimination, taxation and inequality, health economics, and various other issues. Below is a list of the economics related presenters and their mentors from the symposium. Students who are interested in participating in next year’s Research Symposium can find more information here.

Symposium Participants 5-17-2019

Oral Presentations 2:  Economic Issues

The Impact of the Take Charge Family Planning Initiative on Educational Attainment for Hispanic Women in Washington State 
Nadya Ekhteraee Sanaee, Senior, Economics, pre med 
UW Honors Program 
Mentor: Rachel Heath, Economics 

Newly Implemented Policy: Two-child Policy — A Case Study of Taiwan 
Zhiyi (Elaine) Yang, Senior, Economics, Mathematics 
UW Honors Program 
Mentor: Melissa Knox, Economics 

Intersectional Econometrics: Do People With More Marginalized Identities Earn Less Average Annual Wages Than People With More Privileged Identities? 
Michael Vargas, Senior, Economics 
Mentor: Frances Maloy, Accounting, Finance and Information Systems, Foster School of Business 

Why Do Banks Discriminate? Heterogeneous Effects of Traditional Determinants on Minority vs. Non-Minority Business Loan Default Rate 
Anni Hong, Senior, Mathematics, Economics 
UW Honors Program 
Mentor:  Greg Duncan, Economics

Evaluating California's Earned Income Tax Credit 
Steven Nash, Senior, Mathematics, Economics 
UW Honors Program 
Mentor: Alan Griffith, Economics 

When Lower Taxes Are Not Actually Lower Taxes: A State-Level Study of Legal Financial Obligations 
Konan Mauritz Kile, Senior, Sociology, Economics 
UW Honors Program 
Mentor: Alexes Harris, Sociology 

Were the Conditions Attached to the IMF Loan to South Korea in 1997 Appropriate? 
Yean Kim, Junior, Economics 
UW Honors Program 
Mentor: Levis Kochin, Economics 
Mentor: Thor Dodson, Economics, UW Economics Department 

Other Oral presentations (mentors from other departments)

Public Transit and Private Car Ownership: How to Best Help Low-Income, Urban Workers
Christopher J (CJ) Robinson, Senior, Political Science, Economics
Mentors:  Rebecca Thorpe, Political Science
Emma Rodman, Political Science, Center for American Politics and Public Policy

How do Mean and Variance Affect Gene Survival and Gene Frequencies?
Jueyi Liu, Senior, Economics, Applied & Computational Mathematical Sciences (Scientific Computing & Numerical Algorithms)
UW Honors Program
Mentor:  Elizabeth Thompson, Statistics 

Investigating Nuclear Localization Patterns in NUP188 Patients using Live Cell Fluorescence
Natalie J. Weed, Senior, Economics, Neurobiology
Mary Gates Scholar, UW Honors Program
Mentors:  Heather Mefford, Pediatrics
Alison Muir, Pediatrics 

Poster presentation (mentors from the dept of economics)

Development assistance for non-communicable diseases:  Political, socioeconomic, and health indicators of foreign aid for an emerging global crisis
Caroline Anne Kasman, Economics
UW Honors Program
Mentor:  Melissa Knox, Economics 

Technology Effects on Labor Force Market
Grace Shi, Senior, Economics
Ju Eun (Esther) Ahn, Senior, Economics, Psychology
Ivana Kolinek, Senior, Economics
Mentor:  Elaina Rose, Economics 

Other poster presentations (mentors from other departments)

Subjective Valence of Memory Associations and Exercise Behaviors
Chuqing (Carrie) Gao, Senior, Economics, Psychology (and others)
Mentor:  Brian Flaherty, Psychology 

Kindness Online
Shiyue Sybil Wang, Recent Graduate, Informatics, Economics (and others)
Mentor: Alexis Hiniker, The Information School

Characterizing the “Stress-Reward” Pathway: The Effect of α-CRF Injection on Decision-Making Behavior in Male and Female Mice
Kevin Haokun Li, Senior, Economics
Mentors: Paul Phillips, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Rapheal Williams, Pharmacology, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences,
University of Washington Neuroscience Graduate Program 

A Comparison of Variability Due to Cross-Validation and Initialization in Neural Networks
Jueyi Liu, Senior, Economics, Applied & Computational Mathematical
Sciences (Scientific Computing & Numerical Algorithms)
UW Honors Program
Mentor: Caren Marzban, Applied Physics Laboratory, Statistics 

The Contribution of Lay Health Workers in A Succesful Intervention Supporting High-Risk Youth with Type 1 Diabetes: A Qualitative Assessment of the Diabetes Community Care Ambassador Program
Nadya Ekhteraee Sanaee, Senior, Economics (and others)
UW Honors Program
Mentor:  Faisal Malik, Pediatrics 

Trust, Access, and Adaptation to Needs: The Role of Community-Based Promoters in Health Insurance Delivery in Gujarat, India
Lauryn Stafford, Senior, public Health-Global Heath, Economics
UW Honors Program
Mentor:  Azim Khan, Global Health

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