Amara Jones-Myers

About me

Originally, I believed economics prioritized monetary benefits over human life and happiness. However, my first Dartmouth course revealed that economics' primary focus is humanity and its needs. I am from a small town in Minnesota, but I love to explore this world's many cultures. I attended the 2024 American Economic Association Summer Program at Howard University, and I graduated with honors from Dartmouth in 2025. As an American citizen, I want to use my birth privilege to advocate for high-quality, safe education in underserved countries. This difficult yet joyful journey in this program will equip me with the tools to face the world's many intricacies. My personal mission is to use my economic background to share the joy of education and literacy, both at home and abroad.

Research

While at Dartmouth, I attended the Dartmouth Undergraduate Economics Research Conference, where the upperclassmen used creativity and collaboration to address prevalent social issues. Inspired, I attended lectures on inequality, discrimination, and opportunity, and met with visiting professors through the Sadie Alexander Association (SAA) throughout undergrad. Through Dartmouth Economics Research Scholar (DERS), I collaborated with Dr. Erzo Luttmer on automating a reoccurring task and verifying author's first American Economic Review submissions through CV's and Google Scholar. Beyond Dartmouth, At Howard University, I studied economics and collaborated with the U.S. Census Bureau for two months. Under Lydia Anderson, I investigated where male and female same-sex couplesLink opens in a new window lived across the United States. Back at Dartmouth, I wrote my senior thesis, “Women Teaching Women: Exploring In-Group Bias between Teachers and Students,” under the guidance of Dr. Paul Novosad. Using OLS regressions, I evaluated the impact of female teachers on female students' educational outcomes in Rwanda and Northern Uganda. Currently, I plan on centering my future research on female education in developing countries, but I am excited to see where I land at the end of my PhD journey