Progress 01/15/24 to 01/14/25
Outputs
Target Audience:The overarching goal of this project is to expand and enhance graduate training in commodity markets through an integrated program that combines traditional graduate training with an experiential learning program, Commodity Investing by Students (COINS) at VT. The project is expected to fill the gap in the USDA's Targeted Expertise Shortage Area (TESA), Agricultural Management and Economics. The project was initially targeted at recruiting 4 outstanding students (2 MS and 2 PhD) to pursue and complete graduate degrees in the Agricultural and Applied Economics department while participating in COINS program. Since 2 MS and I PhD student were recruited in previous periods, our focus was on recruiting the last PhD student. Due to student availability, we requested an authorization to admit 2 MS students instead of 1 Phd at the beginning of the current reporting period and it was granted. Since then, 2 MS students have started their programs in the Fall of 2024. Changes/Problems:The biggest challenge for us has been recruiting a second PhD student for our program. Most of thestudents in (and applying to) our Department's PhD program are international and would not qualify for this program. We were able to rectify this issue by recruiting two MS students instead. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All three student funded by this grant during thereporting period were mentored by both PIs on research projects related to commodity market prices and volatility. In addition, we have been able to leverage the funding from this project with other funding sources, such as Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics funds and Farm Foundation Scholars program. Our PhD student, William McWilliams was awarded a Farm Foundation Scholarship for the 2024 cohortand our new MS student, Isac Albores was selected for the 2025 cohort. The opportunities this program provides complements nicely their activities in our graduate program and the general aims of this grant. Over the last year, our PhD student,William McWilliams has been working on a research project focused on forecasting food price inflation using machine learning methods. He presented his work at the AAEA annual meetings: McWilliams, W., S.L. Stewart, and O. Isengildina Massa. "Annual Food Price Inflation Forecasting: An Auto-Regressive Random Forest Approach." Selected Paper, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, July 28-30, 2024. William also participated in a post-conference workshop on Agricultural forecasting. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A selected paper was presented at the AAEA annual meetings as mentioned above. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Since we don't need to recruit any additional students, our focus will be on providing excellent training for the 3 students we currently have in theprogram.All studetns will continue working on their research papers and training in the COINS program. They are expected to put forward proposals to present a the 2025 AAEA Annual meetings.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period we recruited two MS students who started their graduate programs in the Fall of 2024 (One of them is an underrepresented minority). Both were successfully accepted into the COINS program and have been actively participating in the Agriculture division and their trades. In addition, as graduate students, theyare involved in mentoring junior members. After completing his training in the COINs programWilliam McWilliams, a PhD student recruited last year,became a wheat analyst.Over the course of the year, he conductedweekly market analysis and submitted several successful trades that resulted in a relative return of 0.83% higherthan the benchmark used for COINS (Bloomberg Commodity Index). His trade proposals draw on skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, market research, and qualitative analysis. Furthermore, he currently serves as a teaching assistant for the COINS training program.
Publications
|
Progress 01/15/23 to 01/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The overarching goal of this project is to expand and enhance graduate training in commodity markets through an integrated program that combines traditional graduate training with an experiential learning program, Commodity Investing by Students (COINS) at VT. ?The project is therefore targeted at recruiting 4 outstanding students (2 MS and 2 PhD) to pursue and complete graduate degrees in the Agricultural and Applied Economics department while participating in COINS program. The project is expected to fill the gap in the USDA's Targeted Expertise Shortage Area (TESA), Agricultural Management and Economics. Changes/Problems:It has been extremely difficult to recruit PhD students who are US nationals. William McWilliams is the only US PhD student in our department currently. As we anticipate this problem to continue into the future, it would prove more fruitful for us to recruit and train 2 MS students instead of another PhD student within this program. Therefore we request this change in our project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided??In addition to their regular coursework, both Jayson and Derrell were actively involved in trading livestock in COINS and participated in professional development seminars provided by COINS, such as Jack Gutermuth of Fannie Mae, Jan Dutton of Crop Prophet, Doug Christie of Hedder, and Lyle Pugh of Pugh Farms, among others. Furthermore, Jayson participated in a COINS 10th-anniversary reunion on November 5, 2022 that brought several COINS alumni back to campus and resulted in a great networking event. As a result of these efforts and participation in the commodity investment group, Jayson and Derrell were able to secure full time jobs with Perdue Agribusiness and Amazon, respectively. ?Furthermore, both Jason and Derrell actively participate in the Graduate Student Association in our Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, serving as Treasurer and Social Chair, respectively. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have created a dedicated space on Virginia Tech Agricultural and Applied Economics Department's website: https://aaec.vt.edu/academics/graduate/funding/IntegratedGraduateTraininginCommodityMarkets.html. This will help to attract prospective students as well as highlight the role of the USDA in funding this project. Additionally, the marketing dashboard, mentioned earlier, helps with disseminating the results and informing the public. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we will continue working with William McWilliams to ensure his success in the PhD program and COINs group. His first research project is dedicated to applying machine learning methods to forecasting food price inflation. We also plan to recruit and admit another graduate student.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The 2 MS students that were initially recruited for this program graduated in May of 2023. Jayson Gill, a first-generation student, completed a thesis titled "Virginia Grain Price Risk Management." His research is featured on the Virginia Commodity Marketing Website hosted by the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics (https://aaec.vt.edu/extension/va-commodity-market.html), which also acknowledges NIFA National Needs Fellowship as a source of funding for this research. Jayson participated in 2 extension workshops in February 2023 titled Grain Marketing 101 where he met with producers from Virginia and explained the findings of his research and their practical implications. Jayson's story was featured in Virginia Tech news article in August 2023: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2023/08/cals_commodity.html. This work continues to make impact on the state of Virginia through the Virginia Commodity Marketing Website which serves as a resource to Virginia Cooperative Extension agents throughout the Commonwealth. Jayson currently works as a grain originator for Perdue Agribusiness. Derrell Joppy, an underrepresented minority student, completed a non-thesis master's degree entitled "The Effect of Oil and Retail Gasoline Prices on U.S. Consumer Sentiment." Upon completing his studies he interviewed for an outlook analyst position at USDA, ERS, but ended up choosing to work as operations manager at Amazon. He is in charge of over 200 personnel and uses market analytics tools that he learned in his graduate program to assess key metrics such as productivity, employee performance, and process efficiency. By analyzing trends and patterns, he makes informed decisions to improve workflow, reduce bottlenecks, and enhance overall operational effectiveness. In the next few months he is planning on transitioning over to a sales analyst position after having acquired almost a year of extensive management experience. During the reporting period, we successfully recruited 1 outstanding PhD student. William McWilliams started his PhD program in August 2023 and is interested in expanding his knowledge on commodity markets and international development. His interests were sparked by his participation in the Peace Corps program in Timor-Leste. In addition to his regular course load, William has been accepted into the COINS program and is currently going through training. He is off to a very strong start as he has recently been selected as a 2024 Farm Foundation Agricultural Scholar. Given his background in Finance, this program will help him familiarize himself with issues and problems prevalent in Agriculture. All three of our NIFA National Needs Fellows are featured on the website specifically dedicated to this funding opportunity: https://aaec.vt.edu/academics/graduate/funding/usda-fellowship.html. We continue to expand our efforts to recruit another student through this website and other sources.
Publications
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Jayson Gill, a first-generation student, completed a thesis titled Virginia Grain Price Risk Management.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Jayson Gill's research is featured on the Virginia Commodity Marketing Website (https://aaec.vt.edu/extension/va-commodity-market.html).
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Derrell Joppy, an underrepresented minority student, completed a non-thesis masters degree entitled The Effect of Oil and Retail Gasoline Prices on U.S. Consumer Sentiment.
|
Progress 01/15/22 to 01/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The overarching goal of this project is to expand and enhance graduate training in commodity markets through an integrated program that combines traditional graduate training with an experiential learning program, Commodity Investing by Students (COINS) at VT. ?The project is therefore targeted at recruiting 4 outstanding students (2 MS and 2 PhD) to pursue and complete graduate degrees in the Agricultural and Applied Economics department while participating in COINS program. The project is expected to fill the gap in the USDA's Targeted Expertise Shortage Area (TESA), Agricultural Management and Economics. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to the training opportunities discussed above, Jason and Derrell participated in professional development seminars provided by COINS. For example, during the reporting period, our speakers included: Dhamu Thamodaran, former EVP, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chief Commodity Hedging Officer, Smithfield Foods. John Grossarth, CEO, Bluewater Commodities. Gregg Estep, CEO Spices and Managing Director, Olam Food Ingredients. Sid Muralidhar, global private market origination analyst, Citi Bank. Furthermore, Jason participated in a COINS 10th-anniversary reunion on November 5, 2022 that brought several COINS alumni back to campus and resulted in a great networking event. As a result of these efforts and participation in the commodity investment group, both Jason and Derrell were able to secure, and successfully complete summer internships at Smithfield Foods and TowneBank/Virginia Bankers Association, respectively. ?Furhtermore, both Jason and Derrell actively participate in the Graduate Student Associatiation in our Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, serving as Treasurer and Social Chair, respectively. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have created a dedicated space on Virginia Tech Agricultural and Applied Economics Department's website: https://aaec.vt.edu/academics/graduate/funding/IntegratedGraduateTraininginCommodityMarkets.html. The PIs plan to extend this space to include information about the students recruited as well as their research and scholastic achievements. This will help to attract prospective students as well as highlight the role of the USDA in funding this project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we plan to admit and start training the remaining 2 Ph.D. students. We will complete training of the 2 MS students in May 2022. We look forward to seeing the results of their research efforts and the jobs that they will be able to secure. Recruiting these Ph.D. students should expand the quantity (and quality) of the resulting products of this project. Also, with more academic and professional conferences moving towards hybrid formats, the opportunities for networking will continueto expand. The recruited students will be encouraged to use these opportunities to present their research and engage with industry players and academes alike.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the reporting period, we continued our efforts to recruit 2 outstanding PhD students. We have shared the recruitment flyer with our colleagues through the AAEA and NCCC-134 project listservs and reached out to our contacts at other universities, including Texas Tech, Clemson, Arizona State, University of Idaho, NCAT, and Kansas State. Furthermore, we established a relationship with Dr. Shernita Lee, Assistant Dean and Director, Office of Recruitment, Diversity, and Inclusion at the Graduate School of Virginia Tech to help us identify contacts at HBCU schools. The full list of schools contacted under this effort includes: Tuskegee University, Georgia State University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Rutgers University - Newark, City University of New York Hunter College, City University of New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York The City College, Saint John's University, Saint John's University, and Virginia State University The 2 MS students are now in their second year of training and have started their research projects. Jason Gill's project is titled "Virginia Grain Price Risk Management" and will be featured on the Virginia Commodity Marketing Website. The title of Derrell Joppy's project is "The Effect of Oil and Retail Gasoline Prices on U.S. Consumer Sentiment." Both students are progressing well academically and participate in the experiential part of the program as livestock fund analysts. Their profiles can be viewed at (https://www.coins.aaec.vt.edu/analysts-2022/). ?The livestock fund that Jason and Derrell trade is called COW. Over the course of the last year, they conducted weekly market analysis and submitted several successful trades that resulted in a relative return of 0.83% higher than the benchmark used for COINS (Bloomberg Commodity Index). Their trade proposals draw on skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, market research, and qualitative analysis. In addition, as graduate students, they are involved in mentoring junior members. Specifically, Jason served as a teaching assistant for the COINS training class and Derrell served as a teaching assistant for the Agricultural Futures and Options class during the Fall semester.
Publications
|
Progress 01/15/21 to 01/14/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The overarching goal of this project is to expand and enhance graduate training in commodity markets through an integrated program that combines traditional graduate training with an experiential learning program, Commodity Investing by Students (COINS) at VT. ?The project is therefore targeted at recruiting 4 outstanding students (2 MS and 2 PhD) to pursue and complete graduate degrees in the Agricultural and Applied Economics department while participating in COINS program. The project is expected to fill the gap in the USDA's Targeted Expertise Shortage Area (TESA), Agricultural Management and Economics. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided students with the opportunity to connect classroom instruction with real-world experiences. This is done through formal training and participation in the student managed commodity investment group- to which both PIs serve as faculty advisors. Furthermore, the various professional development seminars, held on most Fridays, allow for holistic development. ?This project fills the gap in TESA #5 also by allowing students the opportunity to successfully trade a real portfolio. Their trade proposals draw on skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, market research, and qualitative analysis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have created a dedicated space on Virginia Tech Agricultural and Applied Economics Department's website: https://aaec.vt.edu/academics/graduate/funding/IntegratedGraduateTraininginCommodityMarkets.html. The PIs plan to extend this space to include information about the students recruited as well as their research and scholastic achievements. This will help to attract prospective students as well as highlight the role of the USDA in funding this project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we intend to recruit the remaining 2 Ph.D. students. Our recruitment efforts, similar to the ones developed during the first year of the project, will include: 1. Recruitment flyer developed and disseminated on relevant listservs, including, but not limited to, the NCCC134 project, AAEA econometrics section, AAEA agribusiness economics and management (AEM) section, andCommitteeon the Opportunities and Status of Blacks in Agricultural Economics (COSBAE). 2. Recruitment flyer shared with contacts in AgEcon Departments in Universities with strong MS, but no Ph.D. programs 3. Dedicated website developed on Virginia Tech Agricultural and Applied Economics Department's website: https://aaec.vt.edu/academics/graduate/funding/IntegratedGraduateTraininginCommodityMarkets.html to provide further information about this program. Recruiting these Ph.D. students should expand the quantity (and quality) of the resulting products of this project. Also, with more academic and professional conferences moving towards hybrid formats, the opportunities for networking should start to expand. This will help with achieving Objective 4. The recruited students will be encouraged to use these opportunities to present their research and engage with industry players and academes alike.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the reporting period, two (2) MS students were recruited under the project. One of them is a first-generation student that was previously involved in the COINS program, the other is an underrepresented minority who joined the program this summer. They are now both active members of the COINS program. One is currently going through the training process and the other serves as the Graduate Fellow. In that capacity, he serves as a de facto mentor for the junior analysts. Both students are actively involved in a graduate student series facilitated by the co-PIs. In those weekly seminars, other graduate students, being advised by the PIs present their research progress. Moreover, the presenting students entertain suggestions and comments from their peers. This allows the students recruited by the project to envision areas for contribution and future research agenda. ?
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
So far, this project has facilitated recruitment and mentoring of 2 MS students. Both PIs have been guiding their academic progress and potential thesis topics that may result in publishable articles and conference presentations. Both students were also admitted in the COINS program are closely involved in training during this academic year.
|
|