Undergraduate student, Kate Whitbred, was the winner of the Scott Glendhill Prize in Applied Economics for the paper, “Differences in College Major Choice by Sexual Orientation.”
Major: Economics (class of 2025)
Minors: Mathematics and Statistics
Kate has always been interested in both math and social science research, which led her to take AP Economics in high school. After her first semester in college, she decided to tentatively focus on Economics as her major. This decision was confirmed when she explored modern research in Applied Microeconomics while working as a student assistant for Dr. Bruce Weinberg.
During her undergraduate studies, she pursued multiple research opportunities within her university, at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. This culminated in her paper, Differences in College Major Choice by Sexual Orientation, which used data from the 2009-2022 American Community Survey to analyze how college major choices differ between people in same-sex partnerships and their straight counterparts. The study found that gay individuals consistently choose lower-paying majors than their straight peers, which significantly impacts their future earnings. This paper won the 2024 Scott Gledhill Prize in Applied Economics. Additionally, Kate intends to defend this paper as her honors thesis in Spring 2025.
Next year, she plans to continue her research as a Research Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and eventually pursue a Ph.D. in economics.
