Janet Stefanov
Class of 2022
Major: Mathematics, Russian, Economics
Janet’s Immersion story began her sophomore year when she enrolled in Applied Statistics with Principal Senior Lecturer in Vanderbilt’s Department of Mathematics, Dr. Lori Rafter. This course introduced her to many techniques, theoretical concepts, and statistical tools that would ultimately play a critical role in her research. Her interest in statistics led her to apply for a National Science Foundation sponsored research experience. While her research had to be conducted virtually due to the pandemic, Janet spent her summer of 2020 with the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
The focus of Janet’s research was to study electronic financial transactions in Kenya. More specifically, she investigated a digital finance application, M-Pesa, and pursued questions about its relationship to lifting Kenyans out of poverty. In the developing world, access to financial instruments is limited, and large portions of the population are unbanked. Janet and her research team spent the summer exploring the anti-poverty implications of the M-Pesa app and its increased access to credit markets, banking, and money transfers. Janet was mostly interested to explore how this application spread and how people learned about its benefits.
Ultimately, Janet produced a formal model of how the M-Pesa application moved through society, matching many parameters to Kenya. The idea was to construct a model that would provide insights into how digital finance applications can be adopted in other developing countries. After immersing herself in a summer of research, Janet then compiled her findings into a comprehensive academic research paper with the help of Dr. Lori Rafter, who she asked to advise and mentor her Immersion project. The final piece of Janet’s Immersion project was to present her findings at Vanderbilt’s Undergraduate Research Fair.
In reflecting on her Immersion experience, Janet described Immersion Vanderbilt as an incentive for her to keep adding new insights, ideas, and feedback to her research. Her advice to peers pursuing an Immersion project is not to stress out as most Vanderbilt students are already doing multiple things that could count towards the requirement.
Janet’s project was such a success that her final academic research paper is currently in the submission stages to a Financial Economics journal! Overall, this experience revealed just how much Janet enjoys immersing herself in research. After Vanderbilt, Janet hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Macroeconomics.