IMMEDIATE RELEASE

College Park, MD - June 18, 2010 - Optimal Solutions Group, LLC (Optimal), hosted its fourth annual NSF funded aspiring economist event. Students heard presentations from several key staff members highlighting the type of work an economist might undertake within Optimal’s four research centers: health, education, workforce development, and housing. The goal of these presentations was to explore the question of “Why Be an Economist?” in an age when economics is becoming an ever more multidisciplinary field. The students were challenged to think about the Wall Street collapse and the need for working across many fields of expertise.

Dr. Mark D. Turner and Tracye Turner communicated Optimal’s commitment to providing exceptional and rigorous non-partisan public and social policy research. Among the presenters, Research Associate Dr. Matea Pender and Research and Technical Analyst II Ben Locke discussed the importance of diversity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as well as real-time systems economics in respect to innovation in research. Additionally, Lindsey Cramer, Research Analyst II, and Luis Pinet-Peralta, Research Analyst III, provided the students with background on workforce and social trends. The presentations were part of Optimal’s initiative to help develop a growing emphasis on interdisciplinary research and innovation while impressing the impact of economics in business, research, and cultural studies.

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Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC is a non-partisan public policy research firm dedicated to rigorous and evidence-based research. Optimal's clients are local, state, and federal governments; non-governmental organizations; and corporations and foundations. Located in the M Square Research Park, Optimal has grown quickly by building on a reputation of exceptional services and products. Our clients benefit from our innovations, value, and efficiency, which we have been able to establish through a robust technology-based infrastructure, uncompromising and documented quality-control procedures, and effective employee recruitment techniques. Optimal has four research centers: health, education, workforce development, and housing.

For more information, please contact Optimal's Communications Department at 301.306.1170 or info@optimalsolutionsgroup.com.