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What she does:
- As a research assistant, Rebecca assisted economists on research projects on the national economy, including projects on inflation and on the labor market. Assistance ranged from helping create presentations to advanced econometric and statistical work.
As a doctoral student, Rebecca takes classes and does research on time series.
Math on the job:
- Most of her economic research involved statistical analysis, such as running regressions. Math is important in understanding the models for the data and properly interpreting the results.
Math (especially probability and analysis) is also vital in her current statistics research, for reading theoretical papers and creating new models and estimators.
Computer programming skills, for both statistical analysis and data clean-up, are also important in statistics and economics research.
Rebecca's background:
- Rebecca was a math major and economics minor, with a computer science concentration at Swarthmore College.
She worked as an undergraduate intern at Lucent Technologies and at the Bureau of Economic Analysis. She was a Junior Fellow at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology.
Rebecca has always enjoyed math and started to be interested in economic applications as a research assistant in economics at Swarthmore College.
Rebecca's advice to students:
- If you are interested in math, it is helpful to take classes in applied areas. It gives a new perspective on the math you learn.
Advanced math shows up in surprising places, such as in models of human behavior.
Math is more fun if you work on it with friends.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, from professors, friends, tutors, or anyone else.