Atmos

What is your background?

I studied Engineering Sciences for my bachelor’s degree but realised along the way that it was too technical for me, and that if I was going to lose nights of sleep to study I might as well do it for something I enjoyed doing. The EES Master’s immediately seemed like an obvious choice to me as I had been crawling with eco-anxiety for a couple of years already, and this programme was offering so many different angles to get started in tackling the issue. 

What is the topic of your current project? What sort of work do you do for this project?

My project consists of analysing how emissions of companies are associated to the banks they are borrowing from and if any lending behaviour pattern of banks is visible through network analysis. I want to see amongst other things if the same banks come up as central using different metrics, meaning the choice of metric is not that relevant when identifying the problematic financial institutions or on the contrary does it make a big difference, and what do different metrics translate to.
My work this far has consisted of reorganising the data I was given and preparing it to be used with network analysis, so a lot of coding, but more importantly literature review. I feel like I’m learning a lot about the financial dynamics related to financed emissions, what mechanisms are in place to account for them, how banks are central in any future societal change through their choices of portfolio, and more. 

Is it your first experience with this type of research?

In my bachelor we didn’t really have a research project, it was more of a long technical project for which you had to write a report on. And there was meticulous guidance along the way, with a given goal in mind. This is my first experience with research where I have to choose a subject myself, and take many more initiatives. 

How is the project going so far?

We did have a change in direction in the beginning of the year which slowed down my motivation for a moment, but when I got the data I needed, my motivation went back up. The colloquium went well but because the data came in late, I asked for a deadline extension, and I got it. The deadline was yesterday, so I have just handed in the thesis.

How did you get to the topic that you’re investigating?

After taking the ECN class I was wanting to work with network analysis so I went to Franco, and he had that very interesting subject for me. Even though it seemed I would be a bit out of my depth here (I have no background in economics whatsoever), Franco assured me I would be able to pull this through. So far, I’m still alive so he wasn’t wrong. 

How have the EES courses helped you prepare for this research? Did you personally feel like there were any gaps?

My three favourite classes were the ones that helped the most. DASM is crucial, whether it be for the coding side of it or the statistics notions you learn through the course. CMHES was very helpful in challenging me to do “mini theses”, so looking for a subject and the data for it then analysing the results. I think it made the idea of a research project less intimidating. And obviously ECN because that’s where I learned about network theory.

Has this research helped shape you towards a particular career path?

My near future consists of finishing this research project and finding a second one, which is stressful enough. But this project did make me consider more seriously a future in data analysis which is also very luckily in demand now in the job market.