Have you ever had too much to handle with your current resources? I have – in more ways than one, but trust me, when it comes to managing a growing economic research firm, it's a great challenge to have and certainly not something to dread. Over the last nine years we've had some humbling experiences, hired some GREAT team members, worked with a TREMENDOUS board, and had a few REMARKABLE breaks that have allowed my friend/business partner, Sterling Liddell, and I to see something that began (thanks to a suggestion from our boss-at-the-time, Dave Miller) as a night and weekend hobby in 2007 develop into something I truly look forward to being a part of each day.

Thanks to the difficult economic situation in 2008-2009, I was fortunate (feels weird saying that, but looking back rings true) to be laid off and jumped feet first into the self-employed world. While it hasn't all been sunshine and lollipops since 2009, we've expanded from just myself to Sampath Jayasinghe (Sri Lanka) to Merlin Siefken(Nebraska) to Michelle Mensing (Iowa) to Patricia Batres-Marquez (El Salvador) and now…to Jing Tang (China). Who is Jing? In short, our new intern who will help broaden our abilities in Statistics, but it certainly wouldn't be fair to leave it at that. So…meet Jing:

Jing Tang

As an Intern for Decision Innovation Solutions, Jing Tang is responsible for analyzing agricultural data to help clients to make better strategic business decisions, and to help coworkers improve model prediction and model estimation preference.

Jing works with clients and coworkers on data cleaning, modeling estimation, optimization, prediction, machine learning, and risk analysis, as well as providing reliable analysis results. So far, she has been involved in several projects, such as using the prices of soybean oil, corn, and heating oil to predict yellow grease price, optimizing different factors' conditions to increase yields coming from byproducts.

Jing comes from Beijing, the capital of China. She earned a Bachelor degree in Food Science and Technology at the Beijing Business and Technology University (BTBU), and obtained a M.S. degree in Food Science at the University of Missouri (MU), Columbia. Currently, Jing is finishing her Masters of Arts (MA) in Statistics. Jing has the ability to combine both science and statistics knowledge together and to assist clients and colleagues in analyzing data, especially in the agricultural industry.