Michael Cary

Research Assistant Professor | Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Tech | macary@vt.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. Natural Resource Economics - West Virginia University (2023)
  • M.A. Economics - Virginia State University (2014)
  • B.A. History - Virginia Commonwealth University (2011)

    • Research Interests

  • Exposure to Environmental Factors
  • Network Theory & Graph Theory
  • Applied Machine Learning

    • Welcome

    Welcome to my professional website! I am a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech. I lead the VT Data Science for the Public Good REEU where I teach the fundamentals of data science to undergrads in an experiential learning format where the students complete actual projects for public-serving stakeholders.
    My current research focuses on how environmental factors affect people's well-being. For example, one of my ongoing research projects uses a difference-in-differences model with staggered treatment timing to estimate the causal effect of utility-scale solar facilities on suicide rates. We find that soalr facilities reduce suicide rates by ~1 suicide per 100,000 people per year, and we link this reduction to solar facilities keeping more farms open, suggesting that the reduction in suicides is driven by farmers.