UW Student Wins Outstanding Masters Thesis Award

Sachintha Mendis, a former master’s degree student in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wyoming, has received the prestigious Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).

Mendis completed her master’s degree in agricultural and applied economics at UW in 2017 and is pursuing her doctoral degree in agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University, says Ben Rashford, head of the UW Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

Mendis’ thesis title was “Estimating Demand for Food Quantity and Quality in China.”

“The AAEA, each year, selects a maximum of three theses from nominations representing the best graduate student research in the country,” says Rashford. “The AAEA is the largest and most prestigious professional association for agricultural and applied economics.”

Mendis is the second UW student selected for the award in the last four years. Anna Scofield, from Mammoth, Calif., received the honor in 2015.

“Sachintha’s investigation of the structure of food demand in China contributes to our understanding of the demand for food quality and has implications for marketing U.S. food products in China’s ever-expanding consumer market,” Rashford says.

Mendis is originally from Sri Lanka, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness and a master of philosophy in agricultural economics.

Her UW thesis committee members were professors Chris Bastian, Vardges Hovhannisyan and Alexandre Skiba.