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Student News

Abigail Boorstin

Abigail Boorstin is a first year environmental economics and management major from Dunwoody, Georgia. She is the recipient of the CAES Walter F. Carlan Scholarship, the UGA Charter Scholarship, and she is a UGA Merit Scholar and an AP Scholar. Abigail is a member of Sigma Delta Tau, UGA HEROs, and UGA Hillel. Also, she is involved in the dance marathon. In high school, she was in the Beta Club, and she served as secretary of the National Honor Society and historian of the Spanish Honor Society. She won the Michigan State Book Award and the Girl Scout Silver Award.

After obtaining her B.S., Abigail plans to pursue an M.S. in environmental sciences and work in that field.

In her leisure time, she enjoys playing soccer, reading and hanging out with her friends. Abigail is involved in a number of volunteer activities through the Jewish communities in Atlanta and Athens.

Jason Faughtenberry is a fourth year agribusiness and Spanish major from Asburn, Georgia. He is on the Dean’s List and the President’s List, and he is a member of Delta Epsilon Iota Academic Honors Society. In 2005, Jason participated in UGA’s Study Abroad program in Spain. Currently, he is working part-time at Zim’s Bagel Bakery. Through community interaction, Jason is working on advancing his Spanish language skills.

After college graduation, Jason plans “to obtain a position where he can use refined people skills and leadership techniques to lead business segments of international corporations to profitable futures.” He added, “I am excited to be entering the field of agriculture at a point in time when so much change is occurring. That change, which will bring positive and negative effects on the industry, will require complex out-of-the-box strategies that have never been used before. With the knowledge I have learned and continue to learn in the department, I know that I will be prepared to face these challenges.”

In his leisure time, Jason likes to hunt, fish, listen to music, and help his parents with their commercial kennel operation. He also enjoys reading business articles to connect ideas he learns in the classroom to real life situations.

Ozgur (Oz) Kaya, a Ph.D. student majoring in agricultural and applied economics, is serving as vice president of the Graduate Student Association. She received her B.A. in economics from Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences in Turkey which is in her hometown of Ankara.

Oz plans to stay in academia and become a professor. She “loves” teaching. She stated, “Someday I hope to be as good (at teaching) as my professors here at UGA.”

Oz is a member of the Interfaith Cultural Organization (IFCO) – a student organization at UGA. She described IFCO as “a multi-cultural and multi-religious organization dedicated to finding and celebrating the common ties that bind us as brothers and sisters. It also fosters understanding, tolerance, respect, and love towards our fellow human beings by sharing cultures and spiritual traditions of the world’s sacred religions.” In pursuit of IFCO’s goals, Oz accompanied a group of American friends from Athens on an Interfaith Dialogue Trip to Turkey.

In her leisure time, Oz enjoys cooking and trying new recipes from different cuisines. Her specialty lies in Turkish cuisine. She also enjoys reading novels, history and nonfiction. Currently, most of her reading involves papers and textbooks related to her studies. Oz is active in volunteer work with nonprofit organizations.

Andrew Menaquale is a fourth year environmental economics and management/political science major and environmental law minor from Roswell, Georgia. He spent the summer of 2006 as an intern in the office of Congressman Jim Marshall in Washington, D.C. His major duties involved work for the Agriculture Committee and Armed Services Committee. He created spreadsheets for attendance records for congressional hearings, and voting records in committee and subcommittee markup sessions. He also recorded any remarks made in the committee by Congressman Marshall. In addition to committee work, he wrote constituent response letters, and scanned and sorted incoming mail each day. Also, Andrew helped arrange and attended fund raising events.

While in Washington, Andrew met some well known people, including Senators Saxby Chambliss, Johnny Isakson, and Barak Obama and Congressmen Jim Marshall, John Barrow and Dennis Kucinich. During weekends, Andrew went sightseeing to all the war memorials and presidential monuments. He became good friends with interns in the other offices.

His experience as an intern taught Andrew much about work in the post-graduate phase of his life and the type of work performed on the “Hill.” It also showed him how politics works first-hand, as opposed to reading about it in textbooks and media. Andrew has not yet decided whether he will work for a congressman later. He remarked, “It has its advantages and drawbacks.” After graduating from college, he plans to attend law school. He stated, “I have a passion for protecting the environment. My goal is to be an environmental lawyer and continue my support and advocacy in the government and EPA.”

Andrew is in the Honors Program, a President’s Scholar, on the Dean’s List and a Co-Bank Scholarship recipient. He is the committee chairman of the UGA Model United Nations Team, manager and sweetheart chair of the Tau Epsilon Phi Fraternity and a member of Students for Environmental Awareness. He worked with the Katrina Relief Fund in 2005, plays intramural sports and coaches a little league baseball team.

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Alumni News

Laci J. Banks

Laci Banks was presented the 2006 J. W. Fanning Distinguished Young Professional Award for outstanding accomplishments in her profession. She is an Agricultural Statistician for the United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Service. Laci is on the “fast track” in her career. She has been chosen to enter the Mathematics Statistician Program and will begin taking classes at North Carolina State University in the fall of 2007. She was reassigned to Raleigh, North Carolina from the Oregon field office and will continue to work while taking classes. Normally, this type of promotion is obtained after three to five years of service, but Laci was selected for this assignment after only two years with the National Agricultural Statistical Service. In Raleigh, Laci works in the estimates section and is responsible for estimates of commodities, including catfish, trout, blueberries, oats, rye, hay, mink, sheep, and goats. She is also the survey administrator for sheep and goats, aquaculture, and blueberry producers, processors and handlers.

While working in the Oregon field office, Laci was responsible for planning and conducting agricultural surveys and preparing estimates, forecasts and reports for commodities or items which are of major importance to Oregon agriculture. More specifically, she prepared estimates for hay, milk, milk cows and goats. She also conducted several agricultural surveys for the state of Oregon.

After only two months in her position in the Oregon office, Laci was entrusted with the task of writing a computer program to edit and summarize the data for the Oregon Wheat Grower’s Opinion Survey. While writing the program was not a problem for Laci, understanding code data and the layout of the survey was a challenge for her. She had to do extensive research on SAS procedures before she could even begin to write the program. After two months of writing programs and summarizing data, she had a finished product for the Oregon Wheat Commission and the Oregon Wheat Grower’s League. This project tested Laci’s analytical and technical skills, but it also enhanced them. She was honored in March 2006 for initiative and self-motivation in developing a reporter manual for the Crop Weather Report, which is released every Monday from April through November.

Laci’s greatest accomplishment since college graduation was being selected to serve on the Agricultural Statistics Board in Washington, D.C. in January 2006. People selected for this board usually have from five to ten years of service with the National Agricultural Statistical Service, but Laci was chosen for this important task after only one year and four months on her job. She spent two weeks in Washington, D.C. working with this board to determine the official national crop estimates (acreage, production, yield) for 2005.

Laci received a B.S. in agribusiness management from Alcorn State University in 2002 and an M.S. in agricultural economics from UGA in 2004. She was a Graduate and Professional Scholar while in college. Actions taken by Laci during her college years have helped to advance her professional career. She stood firm in believing in herself and did not conform to what others thought she should be. Laci believes it is very important to know “who you are, and be confident in being you.” Also, she concentrated on enhancing her weaknesses one at a time throughout her college career until her strengths far outnumbered her weaknesses.

Laci offers the following advice for current students in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics: “Do your personal best without compromising your character. You will be respected so much more in the end. Then, if there is something you don’t know, don’t be full of pride – ask for help. And always listen to your major professor. The knowledge and basic principles (work ethic, discipline, etc.) he/she will share with you are priceless. Those principles will aid you far beyond UGA, and without a doubt, they will help you during the first years of your career.” Laci will always cherish her memories of UGA and the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. She states, “I am truly grateful to have had Dr. Lewell Gunter as a major professor. He taught me so much more than how to complete a thesis. Lessons learned from Dr. Gunter have helped me excel in my position with the National Agricultural Statistics Service.”

In her leisure time, Laci “loves” trying out new restaurants with friends. She enjoys attending church and church-related activities, and she enjoys reading good books.

Mark Messonnier
UGA Ag-Econ Alumnus Promotes Immunization

The American government spends more than a billion dollars each year on vaccinations to protect children and adults from disease. However, not enough people voluntarily take the shots needed to save their lives. Finding out why is the job of health economist Mark Messonnier.

As the lead economist for the National Immunization Program (NIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Messonnier and his team of six economists and researchers are charged with factoring the economic impact and cost/benefit of immunization programs.

This accomplished researcher earned his PhD in agricultural economics from The University of Georgia in 1995. Since then, his contributions to health economics have garnered him many accolades, including the 1996 Surgeon General's Exemplary Service Award for Program Analysis Essential to the Office of the Surgeon General and the 1997 Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service. The 1997 award resulted from research guided by Messonier's agriculture background. "Being an ag major, I knew who to call at the USDA and was able to go to meetings and report on progress. If the germ was on these fruits and vegetables, I could help."

"Health economics is not about money, it's about choices. But money is a convenient way to explain the choices," Messonnier said. "Economists really study behavior. We're looking at how and why people make choices."

One of NIP's most important activities is developing and distributing the adult and childhood immunization schedule. "The costs for ignoring these important immunizations are staggering," Messonnier said.

According to the NIP 2005 annual report, hospitalizations for influenza alone cost families more than $2 billion in 2004. More than 200,000 people were hospitalized with vaccine-preventable influenza that year, and tens of thousands die each year from the flu and its complications. When other vaccine-preventable diseases are considered, the economic impact to society is several times greater than the billions of dollars the flu costs families.

Past research has included vaccine delivery systems in small clinics and larger hospitals, the use of hospital emergency rooms for vaccine distribution, and studies of standing orders, which determine criteria for administering immunizations to at-risk patients when they visit hospitals for other reasons. In 2004, NIP personnel produced more than 120 publications.

"We'll figure out a system in a hospital that could help patients access this particular vaccine, and we can study why people don't get immunizations, " he said. "One [aspect of vaccine programs] is insurance coverage... A lot has to do with...racial, ethnic, and socio-economic disparities. If they have to pay, it greatly discourages [some] people from getting flu shots, even if the price is small."

Asked to name one of his biggest concerns, Messonnier said childhood immunizations. "We want to know if there [are many] kids lacking up-to-date vaccinations. How do we address that?"

One of Messonnier's current studies looks at under-insurance issues relating to childhood immunization. An NIP public health report released in 2004 showed insurance status was a critical predictor of vaccination coverage for children aged 19-35 months. The uninsured were 24 percent less likely to receive all recommended vaccines than the insured.

"We looked at ways to establish how many kids don't have insurance, and now we're looking at how many who have it are not covered for immunization. Then, we can start to figure out how big the problem is and how to address it."

A range of immunizations is recommended throughout childhood. These recommendations include vaccines against diphtheria, hib, hepatitis A and B, measles, mumps, pertusis (whooping cough), polio, pneumonia, tetanus (lock jaw), rubella, and varicella (chicken pox).

The United States has greatly reduced deaths from common childhood diseases. For example, studies show that of every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die. But because of childhood immunizations, measles is no longer an epidemic. The number of childhood cases in the U.S. has been reduced by more than 99% from 1990 to 2004.

Recognizing that vaccine costs are a tremendous barrier for some families, Congress established an entitlement program in 1994 to buy immunizations for the neediest children. The program, Vaccines For Children, spent more than $950 million to purchase vaccines in 2004. "We did a cost/benefit analysis on overall childhood immunization schedules," he said. "The bottom line is they are tremendously cost-saving to society. They'll return many, many times the money spent for immunizing children. The societal perspective is we save $18 for every dollar spent on routine childhood immunizations."

However, ignoring vaccinations proves to be tremendously costly to children and adults. Approximately 1.25 million people in the United States live with hepatitis B, a vaccine-preventable disease that can cause lifelong liver problems. Hepatitis B causes 4,000-5,000 deaths each year, with 70,000 new infections noted annually. Pneumococcal disease is equally as deadly. Eighteen percent of those infected with meningitis die, as well as 12 percent of those infected with invasive pneumonia.

Further studies by the NIP researchers will add to the growing knowledge available to health workers in their battle against preventable illness. Detailing the monetary consequences of vaccine-preventable disease enables policy makers and medical practitioners to focus on the best ways to promote a healthy population. Economists like Mark Messonnier are on the cutting edge of research to help lessen the suffering of the most vulnerable.

Dr. Steven Cornell Turner

Dr. Steven Cornell Turner was presented the 2006 J. W. Fanning Distinguished Professional Award for outstanding accomplishments in his profession. He is a Professor and Head of the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Mississippi State University (M.S.U.).

Dr. Turner is currently serving as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (C-FARE) in Washington, D.C. In this role, Dr. Turner works to identify key economic issues, establish priorities, and seek support for research, extension and academic instruction. He is working with other professional organizations to foster support for agricultural research and publicize agricultural economics contributions to solving important societal issues. His efforts contribute to measuring and fostering long-term competitiveness in U.S. agriculture.

Dr. Turner received his B.A. in English Literature from Mercer University in 1975, his M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Georgia in 1981, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Virginia Tech in 1986. Upon receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Turner returned to the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at U.G.A. as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 1993. After being promoted to professor in 2003, he was offered his current position at Mississippi State University.

As the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department’s Undergraduate Coordinator for a number of years, Dr. Turner provided leadership for curriculum development and management and student recruitment. He served as advisor for the Agricultural and Environmental Economics Club and to the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) Student Chapter. He was elected by students in agricultural economics clubs nation-wide to serve as Faculty Advisor to the Student Section of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). He served in this position from 1991 to 1994. These clubs now rank among the most active and competitive clubs in the nation.

Dr. Turner was one of the first Lilly Fellows and later a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Georgia. In 2001, he was inducted into UGA’s Teaching Academy and served as a leader in the development of a national network of teachers of agricultural marketing.

Dr. Turner’s list of awards include his being named the department’s Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher four times – 1987, 1991, 1995 and 1999. He received the D.W. Brooks Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1991. In 1992, he received four teaching awards – the Agricultural Alumni Association Teaching Award, the American Agricultural Economics Association Distinguished Teaching Award, the Teaching Award of Merit, and Superior Teaching Recognition at the UGA Honors Day Convocation. He received the Richard B. Russell Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1993 and the SAEA Distinguished Professional Contribution in the Teaching of a Course Award in 1996. In 2002, he received the UGA Student Government Outstanding Teacher Award and the Graduate Student Association’s Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award.

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