This past week I had the opportunity to join some of the finest women in the world in a conference organized by the American Statistical Association. I presented my paper “Cross-Market Unilateral Effects of Mergers on Multimarket Oligopolies” and received some valuable feedback and encouragement from attendees. I can’t wait to get back to work on it and contribute to the field of antitrust policy and economics with my research.

Any comments regarding the conference wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the amazing Hackathon for Service in which our quantitative and creative problem solving skills were employed in furtherance of combat of human trafficking. The initiative was sponsored by Microsoft and hosted by the WSDS 2017. I am proud to announce our team (Jéssica Dutra and Fulya Ozcan) is among the winners and a donation will be made to an organization of our choosing to combat Human Trafficking. It was an exhausting and yet extremely rewarding endeavor. Certainly a wonderful reminder that Econometrics, Statistics and Data Sciences aren’t meant to be confined in academia, but that real-world impact can be made when we dare ourselves to run that extra mile. Thank you once more to ASA and all the sponsors of this amazing event for making it possible.