The Sci-Files – 03/15/2020 – Aaron Staples – Beer Economics and Sustainability
March 16, 2020
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Aaron Staples.
Aaron is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University. He is originally from Massachusetts, where he completed my undergraduate studies prior to attending Purdue University. There, he attained his Master of Science in Agricultural Economics, writing his thesis on consumer valuation of different sustainability attributes in beer. Now, much of his research focuses on the complexity of agricultural value chains, with beer and hops being the primary focus. His current projects examine producer and consumer valuation of localness, marketing strategies for hop farmers, sustainability in brewing, and price analysis of the hop market.
If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected] You can ask questions for our future episodes here. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube!

Chelsie is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student at Michigan State University. She studies what happens to the extracellular matrix of cells after they have been stressed. She co-hosts "The Sci-Files" with Daniel Puentes. Together they explore the different topics that MSU students research on "The Sci-Files" at WDBM.

Daniel is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he does research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. His research involves measuring the mass of radioactive nuclei, and how it can tell us how protons and neutrons are arranged inside of a nucleus. This research also helps scientists understand how the elements were created in different stellar environments! At WDBM, he and Chelsie Boodoo co-host The Sci-Files.