WRDC Expands Research Team
WRDC is pleased to announce four new faces joining us to support our research efforts. We welcome Post Doctoral research fellows Richard Acquah-Sarpong, Shengrong Hu, and Federico Ninivaggi; as well as visiting scholar Tatiane Almeida de Menezes.
Read on to get to know each of them a little better.
Richard Acquah-Sarpong is an applied economist who has focused his work on understanding how public policies and environmental risks affect businesses, local economies, and communities, with particular attention to rural areas. While he’s with us, Richard will lead and support research examining the economic resilience of rural communities across the Western United States. A major component of his work focuses on how wildfires and related environmental risks affect businesses and local economies. He looks forward to collaborating with researchers, Extension professionals, and communities throughout the West.
“My goal is to generate evidence that helps policymakers, Extension professionals, and community leaders better understand these impacts and identify policies and strategies that strengthen rural economic resilience.” – Richard Acquah-Sarpong
Shengrong Hu is working to examine how local and regional economies respond to economic, demographic, and policy changes, with particular interests in rural communities, housing, migration, and local labor markets. His first several projects will focus on housing and housing affordability. This includes a project which will examine how university housing costs respond to changes in local rental markets, with the goal of better understanding how institutions adjust to rapidly changing housing conditions. Shengrong is excited to take on a variety of projects with WRDC because it will allow him to better understand how a regional research center connects academic research, Extension, and community engagement.
“I value the [WRDC’s] emphasis on connecting rigorous research with practical questions faced by communities, policymakers, Extension professionals, and other regional partners.” – Shengrong Hu
Federico Ninivaggi is a regional economist, studying how local economies absorb shocks and how a place’s structure shapes the real-world possibilities available to its residents. His primary role during his time with WRDC will center on rural livability. Federico focuses on measurement, specifically, how a community’s life is translated into numbers that are subsequently used for decision-making. He also will explore links between livability and rural poverty, as well as scrutinizing existing metrics and their implications. He considers this work vital, because public policy decisions almost invariably hinge on classification. Federico was drawn to the way WRDC bridges the gap between research and its end-users.
“A finding here doesn’t just sit in a journal; it reaches Extension colleagues and the agencies serving the region’s communities.” – Federico Ninivaggi
Tatiane Almeida de Menezes is a Full Professor in the Department of Economics at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) in Brazil, who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Regional and Urban Economics, Econometrics, and Health Economics. She has previously been a Visiting Professor at Yale University-US (2004) and a Visiting Researcher at the London School of Economics (LSE-UK) (2016). Tatiane’s project with WRDC will analyze welfare disparities across rural and urban areas in the United States using detailed microdata from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The intent of her work is to improve how poverty and inequality are measured across urban and rural areas in the United States.
“This appointment will allow me to deepen my understanding of regional disparities in the United States while applying and broadening the methodological expertise I have developed through my research on Brazil.” – Tatiane Almeida de Menezes
We invite you to reach out to our Researchers and Visiting Scholar with your ideas for potential collaboration. You can find contact information on the WRDC staff webpage.
