Tessa Conroy
"Professor Conroy deserves the Distinguished Honors Faculty Award because she is a great example of what faculty mentorship at its best looks like; she invests deeply and creates opportunities that change the trajectory of students' careers. She took a chance on me at the end of my freshman year, bringing me into her research group in spring 2023 before I had any formal research experience. Over the next three and a half years, she mentored me through the full arc of what research actually involves, from cleaning and analyzing data to writing for academic and practitioner audiences. That sustained investment is rare, and it shaped me fundamentally as an aspiring researcher. The work we did together was substantive. Under her supervision, I received the Sophomore Research Fellowship, and we produced four extension policy pieces on rural community prosperity that reached real practitioners. We co-authored a book chapter on rural business succession, and I received the Hilldale Research Award for research on credit availability for small businesses in rural Wisconsin. These collaborations taught me how to ask good questions and communicate answers with rigor and care. Professor Conroy also invested in my professional future beyond UW-Madison. Her mentorship and advocacy contributed directly to my securing a predoctoral research position at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She gave me the foundation to pursue a career in research and the confidence to believe I belonged in that pursuit. That is exactly the kind of faculty influence this award should recognize."
Agricultural & Applied Economics