And What Did You Do This Summer? An Interview with Meghana Gaur, ‘19
Meghana Gaur
is a senior at
Lovett College,
majoring in
MTEC and
Math, and grew
up in Austin,
Texas. She
served as an
intern this past
summer at the
Federal Reserve
Bank of New
York. Meghana
has also held positions at the Federal Housing
Finance Agency in Washington D.C. and the
Texas State Legislature in Austin, Texas.
What kind of internship did you have
this past summer?
This summer, I interned in the Data and
Statistics function in the Research and
Statistics Group at the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York in New York City.
During my time at the Bank, I worked on
analyzing and visualizing several of the
Bank’s large financial datasets, including
the treasury international capital (TIC)
dataset. TIC data are directly utilized in
the calculation of balance of payments,
so working with this dataset was really
exciting! I also worked on automating
several of these processes, primarily
using Python, SQL, and R. Over the
course of the summer, I was able to meet
with several economists and frequently
attended research seminars delivered
by the Bank’s visiting scholars. I even got
the opportunity to have lunch with the
current President of the New York Fed,
John Williams!
What have you done at Rice that
prepared you for this position?
I found that my coursework in
econometrics and statistics at Rice
prepared me well to understand
and discuss economic papers and
presentations with economists and
research analysts at the Bank. However,
proficiency in a variety of programming
languages and statistical packages was
definitely the most directly applicable
skill that I brought to my daily work at the
Fed. The course at Rice that first got me
excited about research in economics was
ECON 200 with Professor Brown. Although
it might seem strange that I looked for
an internship at a central bank if my main
research interests are in microeconomics,
the New York Fed’s research group actually
has an entire function dedicated to policy-
oriented research in microeconomics.
How did your internship affect your
future plans?
Getting firsthand exposure to policy-
oriented economic research this summer
cemented my decision to pursue graduate
studies in economics. In fact, I recently
accepted an offer to return to the New
York Fed as a full-time research analyst
after graduation, with the ultimate
intention of pursuing a PhD in economics.
Although I will mostly be working with
micro- and labor economists in my future
work at the Fed, my internship this past
summer taught me a lot about how
massive data collection directly informs
monetary and financial policy decisions
in our country. However, my most proud
takeaway from the summer just might be
my newfound ability to navigate the New
York City transit system.
What was your favorite part about
working at the Bank and living in NYC?
One of my favorite parts of working at
the Bank was the people. Everyone that I
met was incredibly knowledgeable, civic-
minded, and approachable. My coworkers
were always willing to help out with my
projects, as well as share a little bit about
their own work. I also really enjoyed
getting to know the other interns, who
had research interests similar to my own,
but had diverse academic backgrounds
and were from universities across the
country. My other favorite part of working
at the Bank was living in NYC during the
summer. From the museums to the live
music, free performances, and great food,
there was always something to do. One
weekend, a bunch of Rice seniors who
were all interning in the Northeast region
even managed to reunite in NYC. We are
pictured below, hanging out on a rock in
Central Park!
Back row, left to right: Nina Killuri (Brown), Priya Kane (Hanszen), Akin
Bruce (Lovett), Sydney Stocks (Lovett), Emily Rychener (Lovett)
Front row, left to right: Tess Gabert (Lovett), Meghana Gaur (Lovett)
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