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Economics professor Wayne Gray and undergraduate research assistant Melanie Lajoie examined the impact of environmental regulations on the pulp and paper industry. |
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Meet the researchers:
Paper chase
Interview with Melanie Lajoie
Melanie Lajoie is finishing her senior year as an economics major with a concentration in Ethics and Public Policy. She talked about her two-year research assistantship position with economics professor Wayne Gray. After graduation she'll be working for Commerce Insurance.
Did you know you wanted to study economics when you first came to Clark?
No, actually, I came to Clark because of the Environmental School which was just starting. I took the first seminar for the program and realized it wasn't for me. However, I happened to be taking Economics 010, taught by Prof. Gray that same semester. I thought 'this is all right,' and kept taking econ classes and finally decided to major in economics. Then my sophomore year I took microeconomics with Prof. Gray and did really well. At the end of the semester, he asked if I wanted to be his research assistant--that was a nice surprise to get that on my answering machine. I told him I already had a job for that summer-but I would quit it! He said, no, to wait and start the assistantship when school started again in the fall. So I worked for him my junior year, and then again my senior year.
Did you work on the same project for both those years?
No, actually, I've worked on about 10 different things. Prof. Gray does a lot. He's on sabbatical right now and he's still presenting papers everywhere. He's pretty amazing. Right now I'm working on a project examining restructuring in the pulp and paper industry.
What do you mean by restructuring?
We're still finalizing our definition for that! What we are interested in are the changes pulp and paper companies are going through in the way of changes in management and training--shifting from the approach of "this is your job and this is how you're going to do it" to more of a team approach where everyone's important. I'm also looking at downsizing-the impacts of shifts in the economy, who got cut, why they got cut.. A lot of pulp and paper companies trimmed their workforce and they're not hiring back.
Have you had a chance to visit any mills here in Massachusetts? I know there are a lot in this state.
No, I haven't had a chance to visit one, but I do see a lot of them when I am out driving. When I do see one, I think it is kind of neat that I know stuff about them like their air pollution concentration numbers and employment numbers from the time I had to enter them into one of our data sets.
Tell me about your poster presentation at Fall Fest last semester. I know it had something to do with OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration ) regulations.
I worked on my poster over the past summer with Prof. Gray and with Bansari Saha. Bansari's the most amazing grad student I've ever met. He helped me every step of the way with my research. In my research I studied what determined compliance with OSHA regulations in the pulp and paper industry. Prof. Gray helped me out-he had a data set that he was working with and let me use that. I compared the record of compliance with things like the characteristics of each plant--for example, the number of employees and whether it was a union shop, the characteristics of the OSHA inspections, and characteristics of the company itself. I learned more economics doing that poster presentation!
So it sounds like having an opportunity to do research as an undergraduate really added a dimension to your college experience that wouldn't have been there by taking just the standard program of classes.
Yes. While doing the research I worked with two graduate students who became my out-of-class teachers. Working as a research assistant, it felt like I was taking an extra economics class every semester for the past two years. And I feel very lucky. I wasn't thinking of that coming to a university -that there's an opportunity to do research. When I asked 'what's the difference between a college and a university,' I was told that you can do research at a university. I thought, oh ok, and then it happened. It was great!
When you were in high school, did you have an idea what research was? Did you have any experience with it in high school?
No, research was a paper! You went to the library and found your sources and wrote a paper and passed it in. This was different-this was trying to find numbers and calling people. The restructuring research focuses on a period of over 20 years and I had to go to a variety of libraries around the state to find pulp and paper journals and other source material for different time periods. It's actually helped me in my other classes-knowing there's information out there and knowing how to find it.
Now, were you paid for your research assistantship or was it volunteer work?
It was a $4,000 grant-each year! It helped support me through college. I couldn't have made it without that.
One thing I really liked was my work situation. I didn't fill out a time sheet- I was on the honor system. Prof. Gray would give each of us an assignment and at the next meeting we would present what we had accomplished. That is what I liked the most, I got to be a part of team and still work independently. There was nobody saying 'you have to be here at this time.' I loved it. Sometimes I put in a lot of hours, sometimes a few, but it all averaged out. It felt good to know that he trusted me to do that.
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Additional Resources
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Melanie Lajoie
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See a video clip