Katie Baker
Katie is a double major in Economics (BS) and Statistics and Analytics (BS) with a minor in Mathematics. During the Summer of 2020, she was awarded the highly competitive Summer Research Fellowship in Economics for students from Underrepresented Groups in Economics and was mentored by Dr. Klara Peter. For this research, Katie studied changes in the mobility patterns of European populations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her study employed the Google’s COVID-19 daily country reports on population movements to work, transit stations, parks, groceries, retail stores, and places of residence as well as daily country reports on COVID-19 cases, deaths, testing, and population distribution statistics. For her Honors Thesis in Economics, Katie built on her summer research, and quantified the effect of pandemic-induced job loss on food insufficiency risk and investigated the role of unemployment insurance programs in mitigating that risk.
During her time at Carolina, Katie has been involved with the honor fraternity Phi Sigma Pi, serving as Scholarship Chair for two semesters and as an Executive Board member (treasurer) for two semesters. Katie has presented about federal policies during COVID with the UNC Fed Challenge Team, competed on the Ballroom Dance club team, and has been a part of Wesley Campus Ministry and the Women in Economics club. Katie also has volunteered with the LINC (Linking Immigrants to New Communities) club to help adults practice English. Katie was an Undergraduate Learning Assistant in the ECON department for Dr. Klara Peter’s ECON 590 class and has worked as a Research Analyst for Triangle Economics, an Economic Consulting firm. Katie has studied abroad with the UNC Economics in Croatia program during the summer of 2019, and the UNC in Sevilla program during the fall of 2019. Katie will be joining the Federal Reserve Bank of New York after graduation for two years as a Senior Research Analyst before pursuing an advanced degree.
Katie thanks her family, Dr. Klara Peter, her advisor and Cosmic Cantina for their support.