Meet the Team: Eilish Hanson

Eilish graduated with her M.S. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from University on Wyoming in June of 2019. As a graduate student she worked on the WAFERx project studying farm-level economics of switchgrass production in the Upper Missouri River Basin.

Hometown

Eilish grew up in Dayton and Lusk Wyoming, both of which are within the UMRB . She currently lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

"I like to travel, but I love calling the Rocky Mountain Region home."

Her Research

While Eilish was a grad student at the University of Wyoming, she studied the economics incentives for producers to grow switchgrass in the Upper Missouri River Basin. She developed switchgrass budgets for the region and estimated the prices producers would need to receive per ton of switchgrass in order to start growing it.

"It was rewarding to estimate the switchgrass budgets. It's not grown here yet and there's no market for it yet, but we can take the information from surrounding regions and apply it to this region. And then we can communicate that information to the rest of the WAFERx team and other researchers."

Her Current Gig

In July, Eilish started working for Wyoming's Legislative Service Office as an associate policy analyst. She's doing research for policymakers as they write bills.

Favorite Native Plant

Indian Paintbrush

Favorite Invasive Plant

Sunflowers

Favorite Bioenergy Crop

Switchgrass (of course!)

Favorite Place in the Upper Missouri River Basin

The Bighorn Mountains

"I grew up there -- camping, hiking, fishing. They feel like home to me."

Favorite Old West Character

(Can it be fictional?) Gus McCrae from Lonesome Dove.