Announcements

Leshui He (our own 2013 PhD) receives Tenure at Bates College

Leshui He has received tenure at Bates College.

Leshui completed his thesis at UConn in 2013 under the supervision of Professors Richard Langlois, Robert Gibbons, Christian Zimmermann, and Vicki Knoblauch.

He started his position as an Assistant Professor at Bates College in 2015, and works primarily in the fields of organizational economics and industrial organization. He is also working on research projects on education with Professor Stephen L. Ross.

Professor Smirnova Receives Stamford Faculty Recognition Award 2021

During the Stamford campus Convocation ceremony on September 9, 2021, Professor Smirnova received the 2021 Faculty Recognition Award given to faculty member who goes above and beyond the call of duty to serve the students and the campus. According to the Award criteria, the nominee should have a balanced and thorough record of achievement in the areas of scholarship, teaching, and service.

In addition to teaching various Economics courses, Dr. Smirnova was recognized for her work with students as academic adviser, as club advisor to the College Fed Challenge Stamford team, as Career Champion, and the organizer of several community outreach events.

During 2020-2021 academic year, Dr. Smirnova collaborated with Political Science Department, Center for Career Development, Honors Program, and UConn Foundation to bring two well-attended career-focused events to Stamford campus:

Dr. Smirnova also serves as the Economics Department liaison to the Early College Experience Program, which works with high schools across Connecticut. In 2020-2021, the Economics was the largest discipline of the ECE program, working with 68 instructors teaching 52 courses.

The scholarship of Dr. Smirnova encompasses her work on pedagogy, promotion of women in economics, and supporting students with their research aspirations. To this end in 2021, Dr. Smirnova was instrumental in sending her students to the Diverse Economics conference and the National Conference on Women in Economics WE are Resilient.

Her own research on data visualization use in the undergraduate classroom was showcased at the TeachECONference2021 organized jointly by Cornell University and the University College of London.

At the Convocation, Dr. Smirnova shared her passion for teaching and working with students and encouraged students to seek resources that will help them succeed.

Professor Prakash Joins the PLOS ONE Editorial Board

Professor Nishith Prakash has been invited to join the editorial board of PLOS ONE 

PLOS ONE is an inclusive journal community working together to advance science for the benefit of society, now and in the future. Founded with the aim of accelerating the pace of scientific advancement and demonstrating its value, we believe all rigorous science needs to be published and discoverable, widely disseminated and freely accessible to all.

The research we publish is multidisciplinary and, often, interdisciplinary. PLOS ONE accepts research in over two hundred subject areas across science, engineering, medicine, and the related social sciences and humanities. We evaluate submitted manuscripts on the basis of methodological rigor and high ethical standards, regardless of perceived novelty. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/journal-information

Professor Lanza Launches Economic Newsletter

Professor Steven Lanza has launched The Connecticut Green Sheet, a short quarterly newsletter on the state’s economy (see the coverage by CT News Junkie at: https://directory.ctnewsjunkie.com/2021/05/quarterly-newsletter-analyzes-connecticut-economy/).

The Green Sheet “takes a page” from the department’s old Connecticut Economy Quarterly Review (the green is a nod to the Quarterly’s signature dark cyan accent color) and offers readers a current indicator of state economic activity (the General Drift Indicator or GDI) plus a forecast of anticipated nonfarm job changes.

Professor Agüero and Professor Zhao receive CLAS Summer Funding

Professor Agüero and Professor Zhao have received CLAS Summer Funding for their research projects, respectively. Professor Agüero’s project will conduct an experimental intervention providing information about college scholarships to disadvantaged high school students in Peru to motivate their study efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. The project has also received the approval of the Ministry of Education.

Professor Zhao received funding for his project titled “Health Inequality over the Life Cycle and Its Implications for Economic Well-Being”. In this project, Professor Zhao and his coauthors examine the relationship between health inequality and lifetime earnings inequality, paying close attention to the role of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) in facilitating the tradeoff between health and economic well-being.

Professor Agüero becomes an Editor of the Review of Economics of the Household

Professor Jorge Agüero will become an Editor of the Review of Economics of the Household (https://www.springer.com/journal/11150).

REHO “publishes empirical and theoretical research on the economic behavior and decision-making processes of single and multi-person households. The journal emphasizes economic analyses on the effects of policy instruments on household decisions, macroeconomic applications, and research on economic development. Not wedded to particular models nor methods, the journal fosters high quality research using a variety of approaches.”

Professor Agüero will start his editorial tenure in June 2021.

Professor Prakash and Association for Mentoring & Inclusion in Economics in UConn Today

Professor Nishith Prakash and his work with the Association for Mentoring & Inclusion in Economics has been featured in the most recent UConn Today:

New Association Co-Founded By UConn Professor Looks to Diversify Economics

The field of economics, like many areas of academics and society, has struggled over time to bring a diverse range of people into the discipline.

To address some of these issues, a UConn professor has helped create a new organization with the goal of lessening gender, race, and socioeconomic-based gaps in economics through mentorship, resource provision, and the creation of a network focused on inclusion.

AMIE, the Association for Mentoring & Inclusion in Economics, was recently founded by Nishith Prakash, an associate professor of economics at UConn with a joint appointment in the school’s Human Rights Institute. The co-founder is Priya Mukherjee, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin.

The pair started informally working on this idea while they were both visiting scholars at Boston University’s Institute for Economic Development three years ago, and decided to formally launch AMIE this year.

Specific groups that are a focus of AMIE include underrepresented minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, first-generation college students, women, and international students – both those studying in the United States and abroad.

The full article is online at:

New Association Co-Founded By UConn Professor Looks to Diversify Economics

 

Tales from My First 90 Years by Professor Emeritus Alpha Chiang

Professor Emeritus Alpha Chiang has published a new book, Tales from My First 90 Years 

Alpha C Chiang, a renowned economist, and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Connecticut, is best-known for his classic textbook — Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics.

In this memoir, he tells the entertaining, scary, embarrassing, glorifying and surreal tales that colored his life.

On the academic side, Alpha describes in detail his scholastic journey, including why and how he created one of the most popular books on mathematical methods in economics, as well as the experiences of his teaching career. On the nonacademic side, he describes his ventures into his many hobbies, the spices of his life, including Chinese opera, ballroom dancing, painting and calligraphy, photography, piano, music composition, playwriting, and even magic. Such tales round out the depiction of a colorful life.

https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/11850

Spring 2021 Awards

Uconn sealWhile the department is not able to celebrate with an awards banquet this year, we still are able to recognize the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty! This year’s award recipients are:

Undergraduate Awards

Economics Department General Scholarship

Jasmine Kuyateh-Banks
Melissa Mendez
Kelly-Anne Moffa
Joslin Valiyaveettil
Clare Wieduwilt
Linge Yang
Michael Zhu

Kathryn A. Cassidy Economics Scholarship

Lauren Pawlowski

Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship

Ryan Durrell
Cole Ensinger
Yue Sun

Louis D. Traurig Scholarship

Kader Akpinar
Susan Bailey
Prasad Gosavi
SeSe Nguyen

Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize

Brendan Adams

Julia & Harold Fenton and Yolanda & Augustine Sineti Scholarship

Linge Yang

Charles Triano Scholarship

Matthew Petridis

Dr. Joseph W. McAnneny Jr. Scholarship

Kelly-Anne Moffa
Benjamin Scudder
Kira Smith
Alexander Taylor
Joslin Valiyaveettil
Clare Wieduwilt
Michael Zhu

Robert J. Monte Scholarship

Isadore Johnson

Ross Mayer Scholarship

John Peterson
Ajshe Zulfi


Graduate Awards

W. Harrison Carter Award

Jinsoon Cho
Jingwei Huang

Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship

Miranda Mendiola Valdez

Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship

Yijia Gao
Anastassiya Karaban
Ha Kyeong Lee
Kunze Li
Ghania Shuaib
Jiaqi Wang
Yangkeun Yun

Albert E. Waugh Scholarship

Umesh Ghimire

Economics Department General Scholarship

Tiange Du
Xuejian Gong
Ruohan Huang
Benjamin Taraskevich
Ziyun Wu
Yizhi Zhu

Best Third Year Paper Award

Lindsey Buck, awarded for her paper “Head Start Improves Health and Welfare 25 Years After Participation”

Graduate School Pre-Doctoral Fellowship

Faisal Algosair
Abdulmohsen Almuhaisen
Erdal Asker
Birenda Budha
Dingxian Cao
Jingyun Chen
Zhenhao Gong
Treena Goswami
Huarui Jing
Chuang Li
Chun Li
Xizi Li
Tongan Liu
Deepak Saraswat
Rui Sun
Victor Volkman
Jinning Wang
Haoxiang Xu
Heli Xu
Heshan Zhang
Wei Zheng


Faculty Awards

Grillo Family Research Award

Jorge Agüero

Grillo Family Teaching Award

Natalia Smirnova

 

Congratulations to everyone!