Salma Mohammad Ali 21’ had the opportunity to do a summer research internship remotely with Filene Research Institute, a think-tank that does research for the credit union system. Working with National Credit Union Administration data that goes back 40 years, Salma analyzed member retention at Filene and helped prepare reports for publication. For her future career, Salma wants to do research on economic development and poverty alleviation, so it is very beneficial to her to do this type of research at Filene. The internship gave her practice in thinking about problems such as those plaguing the underserved communities that many credit unions aim to serve.

In her internship, Salma frequently used quantitative and analytical skills and tools such as R and Stata that she acquired in classes such as Quantitative Methods and Econometrics by Professor Jermaine Moulton, and Economics Senior Seminar by Professor Diep Phan. She also highlighted the importance of being detail-oriented, a skill that was hammered down in Professor Jermaine Mouton’s Quantitative Methods class.

Salma had great experience over the summer, and enjoyed getting to learn about the whole credit union system, which she had no prior knowledge about. After the internship, Salma was offered a part-time job working for Filene which she is still doing currently. She was very grateful for the internship opportunity and appreciates Professor Phan and Director of the Center of Entrepreneurship in Liberal Education (CELEB) Brian Morello who were very helpful to Salma in attaining the internship. Salma also received the Beloit Economics Department Endowed Internship Award through the Career and Community Engagement Center, which helped her live on campus over the summer and complete the internship.