Post of the month September 2018

POST OF THE MONTH SEPTEMBER 2018

A six-month research and training visit at the University of Arkansas

Laura Andreea Bolos, PhD student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

 

This a short summary of my six-months research and training visit during the spring of 2018, at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Why I went. What I did. What I learned.

I am a fourth-year PhD student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in Uppsala. My area of research is consumer behavior and food waste as part of the EU project SUSFOOD – Consumers in a sustainable food supply chain: understanding barriers and facilitators for acceptance of visually suboptimal foods (COSUS).

Thanks to Rodolfo M. Nayga, Jr., a Distinguished Professor and Tyson Endowed Chair in Food Policy Economics in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at the University of Arkansas, my main supervisor, Carl-Johan Lagerkvist, Professor of Business Economics and Head of the Department of Economics at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and SLU fund for internationalization of doctoral studies, I was able to do a six-month research and training visit in the USA during the spring semester of 2018.

During my stay in the USA, together with Rodolfo Nayga and Carl-Johan Lagerkvist, we started to design and plan a study as part of my PhD project. The study is focusing on consumer food waste and is comprised of a survey that will be distributed to consumers across US. This research and study visit was a great opportunity for me, since it allowed me to study food waste in US, which otherwise wouldn’t have happened.

My visit at the University of Arkansas, enabled me to build a greater network with researchers from around the world, and start collaborative work. Moreover, many of the researchers working at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at the University of Arkansas are leading experts the field of experimental economics and consumer behavior research. Working with them helped me to further develop and increase my understanding of consumer behaviors and decision-making, specifically when it comes to food waste. My stay allowed me to broaden my knowledge of state-of-the-art economics concepts as well as my quantitative and analytical skills. It also helped me see how academic life at an American university looks like on a daily basis.

On a personal level, the research and training visit meant learning to adapt to a new environment and culture, seeing different ways of living, making new acquaintances and friends. I am very grateful for this experience.

About University of Arkansas: It was founded in 1871 in Fayetteville, on a hilltop overlooking the Ozark Mountains. The university is the state’s foremost partner and resource for education and economic development. The university’s enrollment is more than 27,000 and its students represent all 50 states and 120 countries.

About Swedish University of Agricultural Studies: It is a young university founded in 1977 and has its main campus in Uppsala, Sweden. It is a research-intensive university, where research and doctoral education stand for 70 percent of SLU’s turnover. Here sound basic research is combined with more practical studies to solve concrete problems.

CALL-TO-ACTION (CTA):

Welcome to attend the EAAE seminar nr 168: Behavioural Perspectives in Agricultural Economics and Management, February 6-7, 2019 at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Ultuna Campus, Uppsala, Sweden

You can find more information about:

https://agribusiness.uark.edu/index.php

Me on campus at University of Arkansas

Picture by Diana Danforth.

Written by: Laura Andreea Bolos (PhD student at SLU, Uppsala, Sweden)

E-mail: laura.andreea.bolos@slu.se

Webpage: https://www.slu.se/en/cv/laura-andreea-bolos/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-andreea-bolos-692a6227/

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