Ling Yao

Ling Yao is a Ph.D. candidate with a research interest at the intersection of Agricultural and Development Economics. She strives to test classic economic theories using cutting-edge empirical methods and data from unconventional sources, with the goal of informing policies related to food, agriculture, environment, and labor. She is driven to improve quantitative tools used in agricultural economics. She worked as teaching assistant for various undergraduate and graduate courses, including the graduate Econometrics sequence, Managerial Economics, and Game Theory. She taught Principles of Economics as instructor of record at St. Olaf College in Spring 2024. 

She was born and raised in Hunan, China, home to fish and rice.