2021 IDDEAS@Wharton Scholar Bios

Shivani (Shivi) Aggarwal is a current senior at Harvard University, originally from Northern New Jersey. She studies integrative biology with a secondary in economics. During the summer of 2019, she was a fellow as part of the Program for Research in Markets & Organizations (PRIMO) at Harvard, as part of which she worked on a research project with faculty at the Harvard Business School. This experience motivated her interest in learning more about doctoral research and academic inquiry at business schools. She is thrilled to be participating in IDDEAS this year.

Minh Bui is a junior mathematics student from Texas Christian University. Minh was born and raised in Vietnam and moved here around three years ago for college. Minh has always been interested in the intersection of technology and mathematics, particularly machine learning and data science. In her junior year, Minh applied to be a statistics research assistant at the TCU math department and completely fell in love with the subject. Currently, her research focuses on applying different statistical models in evaluating measurement errors while incorporating machine learning algorithms and is aiming to have one paper submitted, if possible, by the end of the first semester of her senior year and this will also be her honors thesis for graduation. From this experience, Minh has decided to pursue research in statistics and determined to apply for Ph.D. in Statistics, hopefully focusing on research in machine learning and data science, because she believes this field is currently expanding and there are many new things in statistics to explore. Also, attending IDDEAS is a wonderful opportunity for Minh to network with motivated students, meet with respected faculty members, and learn from Ph.D. students at UPenn. Minh looks forward to learning as much as she can about research in business, graduate school application process, and different career options for Ph.D. students during and after graduation.

Zuri Davis is currently a Senior at Paul Quinn College majoring in Business management. Zuri was born in Houston, Tx and raised in Austin, Tx. Her hopes in participating in the IDDEAS program is to truly get a better understanding and feel of what business graduate school will be like. Zuri has heard a lot of people say a PhD is very different than getting a bachelors degree, which she expects. On the other hand, Zuri anticipates it will be very helpful to hear from actual professors and people with more experience.

Trevor Esilu was born in Uganda, grew up in Botswana, and moved to Pennsylvania to study at Haverford College. Trevor is currently a senior majoring in biology and minoring in health studies. Ever since Trevor was young, it has been his dream to become a wildlife veterinarian in sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, he hopes to pursue a career in the One Health field that addresses global issues that lie at the intersection of human, animal, and environmental health. Trevor is excited to be a part of IDDEAS @ Wharton because here, he sees a golden opportunity to learn how he could apply his interests in science and global health to doctoral research in economics. Trevor can’t wait to connect with the instructors and other talented IDDEAS scholars who represent a rich diversity of identities and ideas.

Victoria Fan is a recent graduate from University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics (ACMS). She is interested in pursuing a doctoral degree in Accounting after training in public accounting for several years. Victoria believes IDDEAS is a perfect platform to connect with Wharton faculty and fellow scholars who share the same passion in academic research. She would also love to gain a better understanding of what it is like to be a PhD candidate from current PhD students at Wharton. Victoria is particularly interested in learning how to leverage her industrial experience and skills in academia.

Aditya Jain was born and raised in Chandigarh, India, and attended high school in Pune. Aditya is a junior Mathematics major at Middlebury College. He has worked as a research assistant at Middlebury Economics Department, studying the effect of treaties and taxes on limiting debris in outer space. Aditya plans to apply to pre-doctoral economic research positions in his senior year and aims to pursue a Ph.D. in Economics after a pre-doc. Through IDDEAS, Aditya wants to learn more about the intersection of business research and environmental economics. He also wants to meet other students interested in economic research and gain insights into the application process to business doctoral programs.

Trennedy Kleczewski is from Elgin, Illinois. She recently graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in Marketing and Business Process Management. After college, Trennedy started her professional career as a Corporate Risk Analyst at Discover Financial Services. Trennedy applied to IDDEAS to learn more about the growing opportunities within the business research community and begin her journey in pursuing a PhD. Trennedy is excited to foster relationships with other IDDEAS scholars, as well discuss her aspirations in marketing, operational management, and business analytics with distinguished Wharton instructors.

Carnealus Manning is currently studying Business administration with concentrations in fundraising and philanthropy at Paul Quinn College, where he is a presidential scholar. He is the president of the student chapter of the association for fundraising professionals at Paul Quinn. He also is a member of the schools winning Battle of the brains team. He has had internships in non-profit and for-profit organizations, like NTT Data, Toyota North America, The AT&T Byron Nelson, and The office of the President at Paul Quinn College. Carnealus has studied abroad in three different countries (Spain, Argentina, Brazil). Carnealus was a part of the University of California’s Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and leaders, an undergraduate program for students to gain graduate school exposure. Carnealus this year is interning at NTT Data Services supporting their sales proposals teams. Carnealus will graduate this upcoming year, class of 2021, and has accepted a full-time role with the Verizon corporation. Carnealus aspires to become a CEO and global philanthropist.

Miranda Miao is a first-generation college graduate from Wellesley College with a double major in Economics and Data Science with a concentration in Financial Economics. She is currently working as an Investment Banking Analyst at Citigroup, specializing in Corporate Finance. She has conducted research at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the University of Cambridge on incentive theory and market efficiency. For her senior thesis, she examined the economic impact of Japanese Internment using a non-parametric decomposition in order to isolate the effects of racial bias from broader economic trends between 1940-1970. Miranda is passionate about causal inference and is excited about exploring such a framework using machine learning techniques in her future research. She plans on pursing an advanced degree in the field of finance.

Emily Schmid is a senior undergraduate student at The George Washington University majoring in Business Analytics and Accountancy and minoring in Statistics. Prior to coming to Washington, DC for college, she grew up in West Windsor, New Jersey. She applied to IDDEAS to get a better understanding of what it is like to be a doctoral student in a business discipline and to pursue a career in academia. Her interests lie at the intersection of data science and accounting, and this semester she is completing a research project using text mining and NLP techniques to analyze 10-K reports. After her graduation this May, Emily will be working in analytics and technology consulting to gain industry experience, but hopes to go back to school to obtain her PhD in the Business Analytics/Decision Sciences realm.

Anannya Shandilya is a senior in The Wharton School studying Finance amd Statistics with minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. Anannya is originally from Indore, India. She is interested in pursuing a doctorate and applied to IDDEAS to develop an understanding of ongoing research and opportunities.

Matt Wang is a third-year finance student studying at the University of British Columbia. Coming from Kunming, China, Matt applied to IDDEAS to learn about a career as a researcher in business, the many amazing stories behind the cutting-edge research at Wharton, and life as a Ph.D. By participating in IDDEAS, Matt hopes to envision his path to become an organizational psychologist and business researcher, conducting impactful research that helps build a better working world. Matt looks forward to meeting and connecting with all of you!

Vanessa Wanyandeh researches the ways in which advancements in the tech industry benefit, harm, and shape society, particularly for marginalized communities. As an intern at Facebook, Vanessa examined the severe implications unmoderated social media has on election legitimacy, particularly for 2020 US congressional and presidential candidates with diverse backgrounds. Her research led her to an unsettling conclusion about modern social media: while it provides a platform for countless underserved communities to share information and raise awareness, it also harbors large quantities of misinformation that further oppress marginalized voices and polarize society overall. As a 2019 Harvard Summer Ventures in Management Program (SVMP) participant, Vanessa discovered an interest in academia. In the future, she hopes to pursue a doctoral degree with a focus on digital sociology and user data collection, specifically centering on how the tech industry deals with conflicts of interest. Currently, Vanessa works as a Strategy Analyst at Accenture in the New York City office. She holds a bachelors degree in Economics with a concentration in Business Analytics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Morgan Winstead graduated from Penn in 2020 with a major in Economics and a minor in Survey Research & Data Analytics. She is originally from Raleigh, NC and currently lives in New York, NY where she works in healthcare investment banking. Morgan applied to IDDEAS to learn more about Wharton’s PhD programs, specifically Healthcare Management & Economics. She is very interested in learning more about macroeconomic factors in the healthcare industry and how regulations can change to retain innovation while making the system more equitable.