On November 10, the Clark and Pinnacle scholars presented their summer research at an annual Research Expo which took place in the Walker Gym from 3 to 5 p.m. The event featured students’ research posters presented in a gallery-styled exhibition. Students rotated between presenting their own research to their peers and research mentors and exploring the gallery to observe other presentations.
Pooja Rajadurai ‘23 and her partner Hannah Ju ‘23, Quantitative Finance majors, conducted research on the impact of Uber’s acquisition of Postmates on consumer welfare and were able to present their findings at the Expo. The pair sought to determine if there were any differences between the pre and post-acquisition performance of Uber, measured by delivery times, delivery fees, ratings, etc. The two “webscrapped UberEats and Postmates’ websites for data using Python, and then cleaned the data [which, Rajadurai admitted, took awhile] and then ran regressions, specifically the difference in the differences [from pre and post-acquisition], and found that prices did stabilize after the merger for burgers and pizza in Boston and New York [Rajadurai notes that burgers and pizza were the two most ordered items].”
Their findings: due to a decrease in competition, UberEats was able to raise its prices. Rajadurai noted this as a cause for further research, stating that, research into different food items in more cities, and “other mergers of food courier companies, like Grubhub and Just Eat Takeaways” could prove insightful to those searching for additional information on these and related developments. Rajadurai was sure to give thanks to their advisor, Professor Pallavi Pal of Stevens School of Business.
When asked to summarize her experiences at the event, Rajadurai stated, “it was great to see so many people interested in what students accomplished over the summer, especially faculty because most people worked with an advisor or research mentor to complete their projects.” Rajaduri went on to state, “I think what I liked most about the whole exhibition was that it’s easy to forget as we get older and more experienced in a more and more niche area of research or fields of study in general, other people in other fields of study are getting that immersed in their own. So it was really nice to be able to take a step back and appreciate how many things there are in the world to care about, research, and study beyond what we normally do on a daily basis.”
Another student who participated in summer research was Micaela Cardile ‘22, a Biomedical Engineering major, who reflected on the experience and expressed, “it encouraged us to talk about our academic interests outside of a classroom setting.” While the event was an overwhelmingly positive experience for those involved, Cardile was quick to add that she wishes there had been more snacks at the event: “It ran out so quickly!”
While students also conducted research during Summer 2020, they were unable to showcase their findings at the research expo due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the event marked the culmination of many research projects from this past summer conducted by Stevens scholars.
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