Meet Ignacia Méndez ‘25 . In her own words:
“I am a senior economics’ major with minors in mathematics and political science. I came to Wooster knowing that I wanted to study economics. I believe it opens the door to understand complexity by providing the tools to find solutions to problems.
A class that really hooked me into declaring was the “Economics of Inequality” with Dr. Long my sophomore year. She taught me that economics was more than just supply and demand – it had a real impact on people’s decisions and outcomes! We studied examples of policies that could be used to improve people’s lives. This class also inspired my senior thesis which is about gender inequality.
My main research question is: how does longer recovery times after cardiovascular surgery increase gender inequality in households in Chile? Women are usually the ones who take on the care responsibilities of ailing family members. When they do this their bargaining power within the household decreases, increasing gender inequality. Empirically, I am focussed on two cardiovascular surgeries because both of them solve the same cardiac health issue; however, the one that is covered by government insurance has a minimum recovery time of 30 days while the other is not covered and only requires 2 recovery days. In other words, there is already a solution available for this gender inequality problem in Chile and I want to show that is worth solving it. Wooster’s economics department has allowed me to follow my research interests and topics that I am passionate about.
In addition to economic research, I have participated in internships and activities around campus. In the summer of 2023, I interned with the Congressional Hunger Center in Washington DC. I was paired with Bread for the World, where I researched the impacts of International Financial Institutions in five Latin American countries and their efforts to reduce hunger. I also participated in advocacy work. For example, I attended a Gen-Z Food and Hunger Summit in which I was able to advocate for policy solutions to improve food security directly with Ohio representatives.
In my spare time. I also am a varsity athlete! I run cross country and track where I fulfill my passion for running.
Being at Wooster, I can follow and grow my passion for using economics to solve global problems with research and policy, while being a competitive student athlete.”