Luke stands next to the Chamarel Waterfall in Mauritius

Author: Luke Hubbard | Majors: Finance, Economics, Philosophy

My name is Luke Hubbard, and I’m a Toller Honors College fellow studying Economics, Finance, and Philosophy. I’m originally from Lakeland, Tennessee. This summer, I was in Mauritius conducting research on food insecurity by doing surveys across the island. The group I traveled with was conducting the first recorded study on food security across the island nation of Mauritius to secure data to provide to the government. By working alongside enumerators from the University of Mauritius, we conducted over 400 surveys at more than 80 locations to record enough data.

At the end of May, I traveled to the country of Mauritius with 3 other undergraduates and one graduate student from the University of Arkansas. Mauritius is located about 700 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean with a population of roughly 1.2 million people. The purpose of the trip was to conduct the first nationwide survey on food security for the population of Mauritius. With the data gathered from surveys, the group from the U of A could compile the results and provide valuable information on the food security level of the country to the government there.

In regards to my own research, the trip was the opportunity to collect the data for my research. This same data will develop into my honors thesis over the next upcoming year. While in Mauritius, the group met weekly with Dr. Roshini Brizmohun, a professor at the University of Mauritius. We checked in with her on the progress of the survey, received recommendations for locations for the upcoming week, and handled any potential issues with the survey. It was incredibly helpful to receive advice from Dr. Brizmohun, as she knew which spots on the island would be populated, and which spots were actually just sugar cane fields. In addition, she is a very published author on food science and agricultural production, and she was able to point us to valuable resources to aid in our further research. We also received feedback from Dr. Brizmohun in these meetings, and she was generally happy with our progress and the speed that we were able to complete the research. Throughout this, I created and updated an Excel sheet to track the locations and progress, which helped the group to see how close the project was to completion and to which districts we needed to direct our focus.

Over this trip, I was able to pick up several valuable skills to improve my professional development moving forward. First, the research conducted was my first opportunity to analyze a dataset when I had also collected the data in question. For all previous examples in classes or in professional settings, I was simply given the data. But for this project, I was present for a significant amount of the surveys. This greatly helps me understand the data moving forward and see the other side of statistics in data collection. Second, I was able to improve my communication and collaboration skills. Because the group from the U of A did not speak the native language of Mauritian Creole, we relied on translators from the University of Mauritius to conduct surveys when the respondents did not speak English. We worked with them everyday, and there was also a slight language barrier between us and the group from the University of Mauritius. This language barrier helped me be more clear in explaining plans and communicating in a more understandable way.

Moving forward, I will be developing my trip to Mauritius and the data collected into my honors thesis. I have not fully committed to what direction I will go with my writing, but it will surely be centered around the data and the experience from my trip to Mauritius. Once I return to Fayetteville, I will be able to meet with my thesis mentor to further discuss the findings from the trip and develop more ideas for my honors thesis.