AERUS History

History of AERUS

The Midwest Graduate Student Summit began in 2008 as an initiative of the Space, Health, and Population Economics (SHaPE) research group in Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics. These individuals wanted to create an event that encouraged the large number of graduate students studying these topics in the American Midwest to congregate and share ideas.

The summit has attracted graduate students primarily from Michigan State University, The Ohio State University, Purdue University, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, past participants include not only students from other Midwest universities, such as the University of Missouri and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but also faculty members that have joined in the conference spirit by providing insightful comments to attendants.

Since 2008, the summit has been hosted at various intervals by The Ohio State University, Purdue University, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It has evolved over the years depending of the scope of the hosting university and participants, but has always been a wonderful opportunity for young scholars to present their research and refine their ideas. This experience has helped them complete their master and doctoral dissertations, and provided an opportunity to build networking and presentation skills outside of their departments.