Haleigh Erramouspe: Advocate for Sorghum Sustainability 

Hailey Erramouspe Headshot

Sitting at her desk is a person who has worked extremely hard to get to where they are now. She has had multiple internships and is currently in graduate school. Growing up in small-town Corona, New Mexico, she is grateful for how far she has come.  

Haleigh Erramouspe is a current graduate student at Texas Tech University working towards obtaining a master’s in agricultural communications. She received her undergraduate degree in agricultural communications from Texas Tech in 2020.  

Erramouspe interned in the Fall of 2019 in Washington D.C. for the House Committee on Agriculture. Prior to this internship, she also interned for National Sorghum Producers (NSP). Once she came back to Lubbock, she knew that getting a master’s was her calling.  

“I had some experience in the intersection between farmers and policy, and just saw some holes there that I thought could really use some research,” Erramouspe said.  

She will be graduating with her master’s in May of 2023. She recently defended her thesis focusing on what do sorghum farmers think about sustainability. Erramouspe is the first to ever use Q-Methodology which is a qualitative method but has quantitative body armor.  

“A lot of times in communications you run into issues when you are going to people who are used to numbers for their whole life, and if there is no data, they are like, ‘well how is this true?’” Erramouspe said. “This gave me a backup going into talking to people saying ‘okay, these are the numbers.’”  

Looking back on her undergraduate years, she is a huge advocate for her time in Washington D.C. as a congressional intern. Coming from a small town and not traveling much growing up, she was able to see a world outside of her own.  

“I got to write an opening statement for one of the hearings and being able to hear a member of Congress read what I had written was a fantastic experience,” Erramouspe said.