Class of 2020 First-Year Fellow: Victoria Meyer '20

Victoria Meyer ’20 grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona and graduated from BASIS Scottsdale as a National AP Scholar, having taken 19 AP exams. At BASIS, Victoria was Student of the Year in AP Calculus AB and AP Seminar. Additionally, she was president of Leadership Society, participated in Speech and Debate, and ran on the Track and Field team.

At Dartmouth, Victoria plans to pursue dual majors in Economics and Chemistry. She participates on the Parliamentary Debate Team, tutors peers in chemistry, and enjoys hiking in the surrounding area.

As a First-Year Fellow, Victoria interned at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) under the mentorship of Nancy Bowler ’82. During her internship at FERC, Victoria worked in the Division of Analytics and Surveillance (DAS), which develops and implements surveillance tools to analyze different actors in the energy market and identify market manipulators, where she had several different responsibilities all pertaining to one summer-long research project. This project involved researching the additional costs associated with sending electricity across different borders into and out of both New England and New York. To complete this task Victoria read legal documents, such as tariffs drafted for each region, and called representatives from each regional market. Once she was able to formulate the tangible costs related to each region, she created summary statistics that analyzed the flow of energy into/out of/through New England and New York. She interpreted a data sheet on excel, created pivot tables and charts that transferred the data into digestible information, and analyzed those charts by investigating how her previous research of the charges for each region explained the trends in flows of energy. To cumulate her experience, Victoria presented her findings to all employees in the DAS during a formal presentation.

According to Victoria, “The most rewarding part of the fellowship experience was being able to do meaningful work at my internship, while still taking advantage of all that D.C. has to offer with fellow Dartmouth students. Every day, I felt motivated and inspired at work because I was working on a summer-long project in which my research contributed to the work environment at the DAS. While doing that, I also had time to go to different museums and see historic buildings. For example, I could leave work early one day to meet my state’s senator. Having that flexibility to do serious work while still taking time to explore the city is a very unique experience that I will always cherish.”

After graduation, Victoria plans to pursue a career in public policy.