The Haverford Women’s Cross Country / Track and Field Coach, Fran Rizzo, sent a personal letter to Economics major Isabella (Izzy) Miller ’22 inviting her to visit the campus and the team.  Izzy was focused on attending an elite small liberal arts school that offers Division III varsity sports. During her overnight visit with the running team she encountered an atmosphere of community, collaboration and small class sizes with the opportunity to forge close working relationships with faculty.  Haverford offered the perfect balance of athletics and academics, so she applied early decision.

Upon entering college, she was in no hurry to focus on any particular field of study. She took numerous classes across disciplines when, sophomore year, she enrolled in Introduction to Economics with Professor David Owens.  After that she was all in and took an abundance of economics classes, and declared the major. While it is still early in the semester, Izzy regards Professor Shannon Mudd’s Advanced Corporate Finance class (which she is currently taking) as one of her favorite Haverford classes.  Also, Economics Professor Carola Binder has been a supportive, guiding mentor, serving as her Cross Country faculty liaison and thesis advisor.

For her thesis, Izzy explains that “essentially, prospect theory holds that humans evaluate outcomes, such as race results in marathon running, relative to reference points, such as lifetime personal records (PR). In my thesis, I utilize race results data to investigate the potential adaptability of prospect theory’s reference points over time. More specifically, I propose the existence of multiple reference points in marathon running, including but not limited to Event PR and Event Age-Adjusted PR, and examine their potentially differing impacts as runners age on various dependent measures including future race performances and likelihoods of racing again.”

In addition to her academics and athletics, Izzy has enriched her college years with jobs and activities. 

The summer after her first year she returned to her Haddonfield, NJ home and worked as a Library Page at the public library.  She had volunteered at the library during her high school years and was happy to see her co-workers and return to the Children’s Department services and programs.

The summer before her senior year was spent working virtually for BAYADA Home Health Care, assisting with data management and integration. She put her statistical skills to work, analyzing data and resolving data quality issues.

Izzy has been a Teaching Assistant for multiple Introduction to Economics Classes and a Peer Tutor for a variety of Economics Classes.

After graduation Izzy is relocating to Salt Lake City, Utah to work as a Controller’s Analyst for Goldman Sachs.  Congratulations Izzy!