Seda Erdem
Background
Seda Erdem is a final year PhD student in Economics, under the joint supervision of Prof. Dan Rigby and Prof. Ada Wossink. She received her B.S. in Food Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Turkey in 2002. Following her B.S. degree, she completed her M.S. in Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA in 2004. During her graduate study, she concentrated on industrial organization, agribusiness, food safety and marketing economics. She researched environmental, health, and food safety regulation, under the supervision of Julie A. Caswell of the University of Massachusetts. During her graduate study, she also participated in a large project for Food Safety Research Consortium and University of Massachusetts funded by USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, which led her to a research associate position in the Department of Resource Economics after her graduation. Before her PhD study, Seda also worked as an economist and a food engineer for a government-consulting firm, holding several research awards from federal agencies in the United States, for about 3.5 years. She performed policy-oriented and quantitative research, conducted market analyses, and built decision-making tools for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Research Interest and Teaching
Seda’s research interests include food safety and marketing economics, behavioral economics, consumer behavior, consumer choice modeling, decision-making in food and health systems, and agricultural economics. Her PhD research topic investigates the effectiveness of current food safety systems and consumers’ attitudes to and valuation of food safety and risks. Her M.S. thesis focused on decision-making tools for effective reduction of foodborne health risks, supervised by Julie A. Caswell of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Seda currently tutors for second and third year courses of the Operational Research and Economics for Environmental Management.
Contact
Economics, School of Social Sciences
University of Manchester
3rd Floor, Arthur Lewis Building
Oxford Road
M13 9PL Manchester, UK
E-mail: seda.erdem@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk