The Agricultural Economics Department held its first Brown Bag Seminar on April 22, giving on campus researchers an opportunity to share their work with the University of Wisconsin–River Falls community.
Assistant professors Mohammad Hasan Mobarok and Md Azhar Uddin discussed how an initial idea can be developed into what they described as a “workable, multi method research program.”
Students and community members were served pizza and encouraged to engage with the speakers, including by challenging their findings.
When a student questioned the credibility of his research model, Mobarok acknowledged that, as with most research, many elements rely on assumptions. He told the audience they did not need to “trust [his] numbers, but trust [his] direction.”
The seminar was organized by Shaheer Burney, an assistant professor in the department and director of the UWRF Survey Research Center. Burney said he hopes to make the seminars a monthly event beginning next fall, likely on the first Wednesday of each month.
Burney said the series benefits both faculty and students by connecting classroom concepts with real world applications.
“We talk about a lot of these topics in class on a theoretical basis,” Burney said. “Here’s an excellent application of what that looks like.”
He also hopes to eventually invite researchers from other UW campuses and broaden participation across academic disciplines.