MFI Student Engagement
A page within Menard Family Initiative
MFI Undergraduate Fellowship Program
Congratulations to Khang Duong and Aditya Anil for being selected as the 2024-25 Student Fellows! We look forward to working with you both and can't wait to see what will come from your research and continued commitment to the Menard Family Initiative.
Discussion Groups
Our discussion groups encourage open and free discussion on readings and current events related to our topics of interest as well as encouraging other associated interdisciplinary topics. The goal of the discussions will be to encourage students to think critically and in an economic fashion about problems and current issues.
Spring 2024
The MFI will host a weekly student discussion series on topics related to entrepreneurship, innovation, regulation, finance, free speech, and democracy. Students will be assigned an academic paper, book chapter, or blog post to read prior to each discussion. Discussions will take place at local restaurants and will be led by MFI Researcher Nicholas McFaden and MFI Fellows. The series will commence with discussions of selected works by the keynote speaker Mark Koyama for Part two of our Student Colloquium Discussion. Subsequent discussions will cover work from MFI guest speakers Lewis Davis, Steve Gohmann, and Diana Hechavarria. These issues may include big business, inequality, economic mobility, social media, climate change, and more.
External Conferences
National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR)
NCUR fosters undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity through its annual conference, welcoming students from all institutions and disciplines. The MFI and UWL’s College of Business Administration (CBA) sent two students to the conference. Their testimonies are below.
Student Reflections
Nainil Jariwala (NJ)
Attending the NCUR-2024 was an eye-opening experience, and I'm so grateful for the MFI’s support in making it happen. It was a fantastic chance to see research from all over the country. The conference exposed me to a wide range of research topics on the East and West Coasts. Some of the research was mind-blowing, covering areas I never even considered before. It was fascinating to see what other universities are focusing on.
Another big highlight was the networking. I met college students with similar research interests and representatives from potential graduate schools, including some of the UCs and Top 25s. I connected with a student researcher from Berkeley who shared the same interest as me in entrepreneurship and AI in small businesses. We might even have a chance to collaborate on a case study together – a connection I would not have made if I hadn’t attended this conference.
As for our presentation, it was a fantastic experience to present the research professionally, considering it was my first time. One attendee was particularly impressed with our numeracy validation, predictive power, and the future implications of the research. It was also valuable to hear their perspective.
Ryan Kitzan
Attending NCUR 2024 was an amazing experience, and it was all thanks to the wonderful MFI. Thanks to the MFI I was able to meet a wide variety of students from universities all over the country engaged in cutting-edge research, mostly in biology or engineering, though occasionally in other fields as well.
I was able to engage in a ton of valuable networking, meeting with students from a variety of fields and backgrounds, including a fellow economics major. There was also a massive assortment of grad schools recruiting at the NCUR, including George Mason, my dream graduate school. Though they were all mostly focused on medical research and offered little for economics/business majors, the representatives were fun to talk to at least.
My presentation went very well, and I was able to fairly easily break down our research to laymen and most seemed to find our conclusions interesting. I would like to thank the MFI, again for paying for this trip and giving me this wonderful opportunity to present research, network, and finally set up my LinkedIn.
