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Happy Friday DMC friends and supporters! We are grateful for another week of progress and persistence at our center. Congratulations to our staff and students for officially completing the Spring 2021 semester.
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Dr. Crystal Taylor Drives Center Research
Dr. Crystal Taylor’s list of accomplishments is lengthy, admirable, and ever-expanding. However, what has too often gone overlooked despite the many publications, proposals, and teaching accolades she has achieved, is her dedication to her students. Our selected FURC presenters are a perfect example of her dedication. Her six mentees have all gone on to present at conferences in Spring 2021, down payments on future publications!
Their projects are listed below.
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Jacob Doty, MS student. Spatial Analysis of College Town area in Tallahassee, Florida. Accepted for the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Conference. Virtual Annual Meeting. April 2021.
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Yolanda St. Fleur. College Town Housing Affordability: A Case Study of Tallahassee, Florida. Under consideration for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement, Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL. 2021.
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Danielle Waidley. Examining the relationship between school choice and housing prices: A case of Tallahassee, Florida. Under consideration for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement, Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL. 2021.
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Noelle Du Bois. Banking the Unbanked: Increasing Financial Service Access. Under consideration for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement, Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL. 2021.
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Noelle Du Bois. Banking the Unbanked: Increasing Financial Service Access. Accepted for the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference. Tallahassee, FL. 2020.
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Noah Dankner. Zoning and Housing Supply. Accepted to participate in the 2021 Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) Undergraduate Competition. Fort Lauderdale, FL. April 2021.
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Noah Dankner. Zoning and Housing Supply. Under consideration for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement, Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL. 2021.
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Noah Dankner. Mixed-Use Zoning Codes and their Effects on Housing Units. Accepted for the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference. Tallahassee, FL. 2020.
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Kyle Ringers. Creating a Sense of Place in Midtown Tallahassee, Florida. Under consideration for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement, Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL. 2021.
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Kyle Ringers. Creating a Sense of Place in Midtown Tallahassee, Florida. Accepted for the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference. Tallahassee, FL. 2020.
Two students are also presenting research papers at conferences featuring Dr. Taylor as co-author.
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Taylor, C., & Blackthorne, J. (upcoming 2021, Apr.) Residential permitting process: A survey of contractors in Tallahassee and Leon County, Florida. Paper accepted for the Association of Private Enterprise Education Conference, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
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Taylor, C., & Doty J. (upcoming 2021, Apr.) Building a property value geospatial database with students during COVID-19. Paper accepted for the Association of Private Enterprise Education Conference, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Time and time again, Dr. Taylor has carved out her time and attention to help dozens of undergraduate and graduate students make their way in the world of academia and policy research. (Look no further than Arnel Garcesa’s work on solar energy: a journal publication for testimony on her investment in our researchers.) We are honored to have a staff member so dedicated to the future success of our research assistants at the DMC.
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Alumni Panel Features Advice, Experience, and Camaraderie
Alumni are the heart of every organization -- and ours is beating proudly.
On April 9th, the DMC hosted an interactive panel with center alumni now working in the professional world: "From The DMC to The Professional Sphere." Eight former research assistants volunteered their time and perspective to our current cohort of data analysts and policy researchers. Despite stressful work at IBM, the University of Texas at Dallas, Nucleus Research, and beyond, our alumni prioritized their time to share the experiences at the center that sparked their careers.
The panel offered a range of advice but none more important than having an open mind and continuing to learn. Austin Eovito, now working as an IBM Data Analyst, suggested that the benefits from “the level of autonomy at the DMC can not be quantified or qualified.” This liberty to explore encourages students to have an open mind at and beyond the DMC. Samuel Lister, Senior Financial Analyst at Paya, also reminded students that expertise is only achieved through life-long learning. Vittorio Nastasi corroborated Sam’s perspective based on his experience as a full time policy analyst at the national think tank Reason Foundation.
In the data analytics space, we were also joined by Arnel Garcesa, Load Forecasting Analyst at Seminole Electric, Jason Blackthorne, Research Analyst at Nucleus Research, and Shayna Cohen, Graduate Applied Economics Student at FSU. Tuning in from UT Dallas’ Finance Department, we benefited from the perspective of PhD candidate Matthew Kelly while Maia Hass, Digital Engagement Coordinator at SeaWorld, offered a keen look into the diverse opportunities available in the digital marketing and analytics space.
This is how organizational success can be measured: Not by the quantity of production but the quality of people and their impact in the world. We extend our gratitude to those who attended and the alumni that continue to shape our center and the success of our students.
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Student Spotlight: De’Shawn Brundidge and Clay Johnson
The DMC benefits from a diverse group of research assistants and their ranging policy interests. Sometimes, however, students find their interests too similar to ignore. De’Shawn Brundidge and Clay Johnson found themselves in this exact position: both interested in the economic ramifications of the lockdown, and both eager to put pen to paper.
De’Shawn and Clay are working around the clock to gather data, develop their thesis, and produce a data-driven blog before the semester clock ticks down to zero. Normally, we might be worried about the approaching end to the semester--but not with these two. Together, they form a dynamic force that our Editorial Manager, Amber Hedquist, has had the privilege of meeting with over the past few weeks.
Mark your calendars for the first co-authored DMC blog. It is forthcoming, promising, and bound to provide timely and policy-relevant insight!
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Alumni Spotlight: Matthew Kelly
There is only so much you can glean from a LinkedIn profile. If you click on Matthew Kelly’s, you see a successful professional completing his PhD in FInance at UT Dallas. But how did he get there? The answer to this question is a testament to his professional persistence and the value of a DMC experience.
At the DMC’s alumni panel, Matthew informed our current cohort that his path to the PhD went askew when he found himself in Dallas. With no programs available to him, he joined a Texas-based public policy think tank that hired him based on his DMC experience as the manager of the public policy group in 2015. He ended up working with two professors interested in starting a DMC-like center at UT Dallas. They brought him onto their development team, given his experience, and this networking journey propelled him into the PhD program he proudly represents today.
Here is an example of the richness of a DMC experience on full display: The skills and responsibilities developed at the DMC directly correlate to respect and marketability in the professional world. Thank you, future-Dr. Kelly, for your insights and invaluable perspective.
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Support Our Student Internship Program!
The DMC has made a name for itself through a robust and innovative internship program that now includes 30 undergraduate and graduate students in any given academic year. Our hands-on mentoring, immersive student education, applied policy research give them the tools to be successful when they graduate, whether they enter the professional workforce or go onto graduate school.
Please consider supporting this program, which is funded through private donations, by giving to the DeVoe L. Moore Center (Fund code F04824S in the drop-down memo).
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