3 First Year Economics Students Win Prestigious (VKURA) REAL Internships

Congratulations to Luca Gaffney, Sam Shipley and Colton Clarke and their supervisors (Dr. Gugl, Dr. Willmore & Dr. Gillezeau), on being chosen to participate in the prestigious summer 2022 reasearch-enriched and Applied Learning (REAL) Internship program.

These internships provide students with “hands-on” experiences with research leading to development of future careers in government, industry, community and higher education (graduate studies). Students will gain experience working within a research environment that is collaborative and collegial with direct support from a faculty mentor. 

For information on how to apply for this opportunity next year visit this webpage.

Sam Shipley will be interning under Dr. Rob Gillezeau, working on his project studying the economics of indigenous communities.

Sam takes great interest in this topic, and intends to use this opportunity to apply his knowledge from the classroom and to practice being as productive as possible in an office setting. 

Luca Gaffney will be interning under Dr. Chris Willmore.

Luca's internship will focus on the topic of drug use in the early 1900s. In particular the use of opium and morphine. Despite both being opiates subject to abuse, authorities – legislatures, courts, and police departments – treated opium and morphine use and users very differently (as did journalists). Luca's role will be to go through primary sources for clues to the puzzle – government publications, archival records, newspaper articles, and more – as well as help to put together a review of existing literature on the subject.

Colton Clarke will be interning under Dr. Elisabeth Gugl.

When asked about this internship, Colton expressed excitement in getting the chance to experience a hands on approach to learning about economics.

I really enjoyed microeconomics and macroeconomics this first year and I am excited to get the opportunity to experience real world applications of what I have learned so far. I will be focusing on l learning as much as I can and how to conduct proper high quality research.