IN A TESTIMONIAL program held April 24, the postgraduate research of Dr. Marilou P. Lucas, an assistant professor of the Department of Economics of CBEA, was awarded by the University of the Philippines Los Baños College of Economics and Management as Best Dissertation.

Her paper, Economic assessment of risks associated with different rice-based cropping patterns in Ilocos Norte, was written in partial fulfillment for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural Economics.

On the rainy afternoon of April 25, Lucas marched as one of the centennial graduates of the University of the Philippines. She finished her doctoral studies on a University Manpower and Development Program scholarship and wrote her dissertation as a recipeint of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agrivulture (SEARCA) Ph.D. research scholarship grant.

In 1992, Lucas obtained her MS in Agricultural Economics from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA on a Food and Agriculture Organization-United Nations Development Program Scholarship. She finished an undergraduate degree in Economics from the Bukidnon State College (now university) in Malaybalay, Bukidnon in 1983.

She entered MMSU as a research assistant at the Science Research Laboratory, and moved to CBEA after obtaining her master’s degree in 1992. She is currently the research coordinator of CBEA and in-charge of the University Chapel.