​Some of third-year Honors student Matt Loxley's favorite things in life include long-distance running and Queen Latifah. He is from Fairborn, Ohio, which he describes simply as one of those rare towns where Halloween decorations line the entirety of their main street during spooky season. This is a season during which Loxley thrives due to his love for horror films. However, he also enjoys movies that are a bit more lighthearted, his favorite being Last Holiday with—surprise!—Queen Latifah. In terms of TV shows, Loxley watches The X-Files, Stranger Things, and Bob's Burgers. His favorite musicians include Dolly Parton, The Killers, Alabama Shakes, and Grouplove. He ran his first marathon last year and finds long runs to be an excellent excuse for escaping from fellow humans for a while.​​

Loxley is majoring in both Economics and Islamic Studies. He is a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the economics honors fraternity. He is also a member of Bucket and Dipper as well as Fishbowl Improv. Recently, he began volunteering as a HIV/STI counselor at the Wilce Student Health Center, which he considers one of his most rewarding experiences at OSU. As an Honors student, Loxley notes that H&S has given him extra depth in his majors and extra breadth in completely different fields. His favorite event is the annual Kuhnival, admittedly in part because of the free food truck vouchers. However, free food aside, Loxley has gotten so much out of his H&S involvement that he decided to become a peer mentor for other H&S students. His unending loyalty to Honors can be seen each time he chooses Kuhn as his study spot, which is reportedly quite often. However, he laments that each semester, as finals week approaches, every chair and couch is suddenly filled due to the house being overrun by "fake fans."

If Loxley sounds like a rather humorous guy, it may be because he is a stand-up comedian who often performs at venues such as Kafe Kerouac and Shrunken Head. One of his claims to fame is getting heckled while hosting a burlesque show for charity. Loxley adds that the Columbus comedy scene is more vibrant than most people realize. He is currently involved with a local comedy organization called Get Weird Columbus, which puts on anything from a compliment battle to a Scooby Doo-themed Halloween show. 

His interest in comedy began the same way so many of us had our first forays into the world of awkward performance art: the 8^th grade talent show. Loxley insists that it took him about five years after that to actually say anything funny, but sources are not currently available to confirm or deny this. Once he moved to Columbus, he spent months attending comedy open mics almost nightly (but adds that he still managed to get a 4.0 that semester). Though he believes he has not yet developed a distinct comedic style, he says he often uses storytelling and self-reflection to turn his own experiences—positive and negative alike—into humorous narratives. "It's like mining your own subconscious. Through reflection and comedic writing on your experiences, you get to learn and study the best subject: yourself," says Loxley. Though his jokes tend to be narrative in form, he shares a shorter one in which he uses his own identity as a source of both pride and humor. "Because I wear crop tops, a lot of people ask if I'm gay," he explains. "The short answer is yes, but the long answer is YAAAAAAS."

Loxley somehow finds time between comedy shows and volunteering to pursue two majors, something he did not originally plan on. He began as an Economics major and was all set to graduate early, but taking a course on Middle Eastern economic development sparked interest in a new field. "Islamic Studies' status as an interdisciplinary field grants me the flexibility to focus on contemporary Islamic culture, religious history, or whatever other subject I want to structure my electives around," he says. He names Dr. Ida Mirzaie as the mentor who played a critical role in helping him integrate his two very different academic interests. His knowledge of Islamic culture and current events helps economic statistics become more meaningful, providing context and perhaps even explanations for the data. Loxley's current research explores whether a rise in youth involvement with protests is correlated with changes marriage habits. For example, he wants to know whether women getting married at later ages as they play an increasingly important role in protest movements, and whether effects differ depending on level of urbanization.

Loxley recently completed an internship with the U.S. Department of State. The experience provided a chance to engage with both his academic areas of interest as he worked on the economics team for the Iraq office at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA). "Each day started with checking email," he explains, adding (perhaps only half-jokingly) that this was "the most important thing, ever." The rest of his day rarely followed a routine, instead involving a lot of on-the-go problem-solving. He was responsible for reading all relevant news and cables on a daily basis. He says, "I had to update myself on everything that had happened in the region in areas as small as social media trends and as large as political or military movements."  During the internship, his boss also allowed him to pursue independent research. Loxley was interested in the development of American franchises in Iraq and how franchise rules and regulations need to be negotiated differently to accommodate Iraq's culture. For example, he explains that franchisees in Iraq do not agree with the idea of giving back part of their profit to the franchise owner, who they feel is not directly involved with their operations. Regulations were adjusted so that they would no longer have to pay these fees. Loxley's anecdotal research was based on phone conversations with Iraqi franchise owners, franchisees, and suppliers (which also allowed him to practice speaking Arabic!). Much to his surprise, his report was later used as briefing material for officers coming over to Iraq.

As graduation approaches, Loxley reports that the future feels much more tangible than it did during his first few years of college. "I realize that I'm not actually going to drop out and fade into oblivion," he says. In the few semesters he has left here, he plans to finish a few more submissions for comedy events and perhaps run an ultramarathon before he "gives into the bodily excesses that come with suddenly having a discretionary income."  If past performance is any predictor of future results, it is likely that he will appear on the OSU Snapchat story at least one more time. Furthermore, it is likely that he will be teaching economics in the video. It is particularly likely that his student of economics will be a dog—not any specific dog, just a dog in general, probably different from the dogs that he has appeared with the past three times he has been featured on the story, none of which belong to him.

His longer-term goals consist of continued involvement in comedy and volunteer work as well as pursuit of a job in economic analysis. Though he is not opposed to a traditional position at a private company, he would love to work as a policy consultant in the Middle East. He hopes to eventually travel to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain. For those who have never heard of Bahrain, Loxley explains that one of the main appeals is the gorgeous coastline of its capital, Manama.

His research has also led him to a more unexpected life goal. He feels compelled to visit Basrah, Iraq, but not for sight-seeing or career purposes. No, he needs to visit in order to experience Texas Chicken, which is apparently identical to Church's Chicken, but with a different name for marketing reasons. He learned about this through studying fast food chains in Iraq during his internship, and it has not left his mind since, though he cannot quite articulate why, simply stating "There's something about the futility of going all the way to Iraq to try something that's available here that makes me happy."

​By Christina Szuch, Honors & Scholars Media Team Member​​