Former Student Spotlight - Kate Best
The Rural Export Center (REC) officially started in May 2020 and Kate Best was one of the original part-time Research Assistants at the REC. At the time, Kate was completing her Junior year at North Dakota State University where she was majoring in Economics and minoring in Math and Statistics.
Since the Rural Export Center was in the development stage, Kate was able to contribute to growing this new economic development office that benefits an underserved population in the United States. She loved taking ownership of real projects and delivering them to clients. Her highlight was being able to have the chance to make an impact on clients and seeing them succeed as a result of her work as a Research Assistant.
During her time as a part-time Research Assistant, Kate used her education in real-world applications. She had the opportunity to work on “The Matrix” which is a customized, data-driven tool that ranks 197 countries using inputs that are tailored to each client’s industry. One of her projects led to a rural company exporting to Lithuania. Kate also worked with Commercial Service offices in Latin America to provide timely industry analysis and quality potential partners to a rural machinery company. The research report led to the company partnering with a company in Peru.
Fast forward two and a half years, Kate has graduated and moved into a research analyst role with the REC. She is now leading all Matrix projects and 3-Country Report projects and she manages the workflow for part-time Research Assistants and new student interns. The step between part-time Research Assistant and Research Analyst was a perfect fit after graduating college.
She believes the position was a great fit for the skills she learned in school including research and real-world applications of data analysis. She enjoyed learning how to convey information from technical sources in a way that is accessible to a non-expert audience. She would recommend an internship with the REC as a tremendous opportunity to get hands-on, practical experience while making an impact on clients’ lives.