Hello, FHC community!

My name is Simon Wang. I’m a rising junior studying psychology and economics-statistics in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

This summer, I’m conducting research in the Learning Imaging and Family Experience (LIFE) Lab under the mentorship of Dr. Jamie Hanson. From 10,000 feet, Dr. Hanson’s work focuses on examining the effects of early environmental circumstances on a variety of outcomes later in life. Last fall, I joined the LIFE Lab because many of the questions Dr. Hanson examines are closely aligned with my own interests in understanding poverty (its causes, effects, and potential solutions) from a behavioral economics perspective that incorporates insights from the fields of psychology and economics (hence my choice of majors).

This summer, I have the unique opportunity to conduct independent research on poverty quite early on in my research career. I’m currently working on a pair of connected projects examining how the environment affects decision-making. Both projects are centered on a decision-making paradigm known as delayed discounting which is basically an individual’s tendency to put off future rewards in favor of smaller, short-term ones (e.g. would you rather receive $5 today or $10 a week from today). Greater delayed discounting rates translate to more extreme preferences for smaller, more immediate rewards. Delayed discounting has been linked to a number of negative physical and mental health outcomes and is also believed to play a central role in the perpetuation of economic disadvantage.

The first project looks at the connection between childhood socioeconomic circumstances and delayed discounting later in life which we find to be negatively related to one another. Our findings suggest the worse off you are as a child, the greater your delayed discounting rate is as an adult, and I’m in the process of writing up these results with Dr. Hanson’s help for publication. The second project aims to probe a connected idea: whether childhood stress relates to delayed discounting and if this is related to poorer mental health, specifically major depression. Throughout the summer, I will be getting this project off the ground by working to extract relevant data points from the National Institutes of Mental Health’s data archive, cleaning and organizing this data into a format suitable for statistical analysis, and calculating delayed discounting rates using a novel statistical tool called Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis. Overall, my work contributes to our understanding of how poverty–and stressful environments more broadly–affect human flourishing which has important implications for economic and social policy. Given the continued prevalence of poverty here in the US and globally, these efforts are crucial to the creation and implementation of public policies that successfully move society toward the alleviation and eventual elimination of deleterious economic circumstances.

In the future, I plan to continue my pursuit of a research career by completing a Ph.D. in behavioral economics or a related area. Eventually, I plan to produce my own research on economic inequality and play an active role in creating and implementing public policy that accurately reflects findings from the scientific community. Obviously, one key element of preparing for graduate school is demonstrating your potential to perform quality research as an undergraduate, and the Brackenridge Fellowship has given me the opportunity to dedicate the entire summer to this purpose alone. With the support provided by the Brackenridge, I have time to lay the foundation for what will soon become my thesis prospectus for the Bachelor of Philosophy degree as well as access to resources for applying to national scholarships such as the Goldwater and Fulbright and other programs, all helping to further my development as a budding researcher and prepare me to one day play a role in mitigating the prevalence and effects of economic inequality.

One unique thing about me is that I played soccer for the same coach and club as Christian Pulisic, the U.S. Men’s National Team star player! For most of my life, I played at a highly competitive level in the United States Development Academy and for Ithaca College’s varsity team before transferring to Pitt last fall to focus my attention on academics and research. I still have a lot of love for the beautiful game, and you can find me playing up at the Cost Athletic Center or Schenley Park this summer.