William J. Israelsen is an economics and biology major who has been involved in undergraduate research in the Economics Department with Dr. Dwight Israelsen since 2005.  He has been involved in several research projects that deal with the migration of people between counties in the United States.  As part of these projects, he conducted background research, used econometric techniques in working with large data sets, and contributed both to the analyses and to the text of the resulting publications.  William’s largest contribution was as the primary author of a paper entitled “Migration Turnover Rates of Mountain States Counties,” in which he was instrumental in developing the novel concept of a Migration Turnover Rate, which is a better measure of the impact of migration on an area than is the traditional measure of net in-migration.  Because population turnover is associated with economic and social costs and benefits, William’s work in identifying the Migration Turnover Rates of U.S. counties and their determinants has provided an important new tool for public officials and policy-makers.  William has been the co-author of three refereed journal publications, four Economic Research Institute study papers, and has given presentations at the Annual Meetings of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters and at the Western Economic Association International Conferences. He is a native of North Logan, Utah.