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Storrs and Stamford Fed Challenge Teams at the Open House in Washington, DC

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Storrs Fed Challenge Team at the Open House in Washington, DC
UConn Storrs 2024 Team: from left to right: back row: Professor Derek Johnson (faculty adviser), Spencer Thompson, Viren Chainani, Lilla Korniss, Claire Dobbins, Katrina Melnik, Professor Owen Svalestad (faculty adviser). Front row: Nameeda Elmi, William Infante, Evelyn Zhou and Rai Kumar

The Economics Department students participate in the College Fed Challenge national competition every year. The Storrs team competes in the Boston district of the Federal Reserve System, and the Stamford team competes in New York. In 2024, the Storrs team was a National Finalist, which is an exceptional achievement. In February 2025, both teams travelled to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC, for an Open House for all participants.

Stamford Fed Challenge Team at the Open House in Washington, DC
UConn Stamford 2024 Team: from left to right: back row: Matthew Dalzell, Thomas Surette, Angelina Solodka, Professor Smirnova (faculty adviser), Paul Juszczyk, Liz Maia, Madina Mamedli, Brenda Leon, Mallory Albrecht, front row: Cole Sembrot and Micthell Velasco.

In addition to summarizing results from the 2024 competition, the agenda of the Open House focused on showcasing various segments of the Fed’s functions and sharing career opportunities available at the Board for graduates with bachelor’s degrees. Participants heard from Brian Bonis, Assistant Secretary of the FOMC, Matt Eichner, Director of the Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems, and a panel of former Fed Challenge participants, who are now employed as Research Assistants (RAs) at the Board.

The students of both teams were excited to participate in the Open House and are appreciative of the Economics Department as well as other entities that provided funding for this trip. The sponsors are the Business School, CLAS Dean’s Office, UConn Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills, and Stamford campus administration. Thank you!

UConn Storrs Fed Challenge Team Advances to National Finals

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Congratulations to the UConn Storrs Fed Challenge team!

Over the past few days, the undergraduate students on the Fed Challenge team competed in the Boston Federal Reserve (Boston Regional) Fed Challenge competition, and they excelled – first advancing to the Boston Regional Finals, and then advancing to the National Finals.

As a result, in November the team members will be presenting their economic forecasts and monetary policy recommendations to the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC. This is an exceptional achievement.

A brief recap of the Boston event…  On Friday, October 18th, the team competed with 23 other universities and colleges in the New England Boston Federal Reserve district. For the first round, the 24 teams (universities and colleges) were divided into six groups of four, with the winner of each group moving on to the Boston Regional Finals.

The UConn team won in its group, and earned its spot in the Regional Finals, joining the other five other Regional Finalists (Yale, Harvard, Wellesley, Babson and Dartmouth) to compete in a final round on Sunday. The final round would decide which three of the six Regional Finalists would move on to the National Finals.

UConn competed against the schools in the Regional Finals, presenting analyses of current macroeconomic conditions and monetary policy recommendations and fielding questions from Boston Federal Reserve economists.  The UConn team was outstanding, and by the end of the day had made it to the National Finals along with two other teams.

The three New England Universities to move on are Yale, Harvard and UConn.

Congratulations to our student team members for all of their hard work and accomplishments!

The students are:

            Viren Chainani (presenter)
            Spencer Thompson (presenter)
            Claire Dobbins (presenter)
            Rai Kumar (presenter)
            Katrina Melnik (presenter)
            Nameeda Elmi
            William Infante
            Lilla Korniss
            Evelyn Zhou
            John Mclean

The faculty advisors are Derek Johnson and Owen Svalestad.

Economics GA Training Seminar – Fall 2023

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The 2023 Fall Economics Graduate Assistant (GA) Training Seminar was held in Herbst (Previously Oak) 312 on November 1, 2023. The GA training seminar was designed to help student instructors and graduate assistants in the Economics Department succeed in their teaching roles at UConn, and to help promote their professional development.

During the event, Professor Talia Bar, Professor Tianxu Chen, Professor Delia Furtado and Professor Derek Johnson shared their teaching experiences, and addressed a variety of issues/questions raised by our student instructors and GAs. Specifically, the topics addressed in the seminar included (1) responsibility of instructors, (2) evaluation of teaching, (3) improving attendance, (4) responding to students’ emails, (5) suggestions for first time teaching, and (6) disputes between instructor and student.

Student instructors teaching in Fall 2023 and other GAs participated in the seminar. They also shared their teaching experiences, and the challenges they face, with the faculty and their peers. The event was a big success, and provided valuable support for our student instructors and GAs. The seminar was coordinated by Professor Chen, who is also the instructor for ECON 6492: Teaching Economics, the newly designed course for first-time student instructors.

 

 

Econ Undergraduate Students at the Boston Fed Challenge

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Once again this fall the Economics Department sponsored a team of students to compete in the annual Fed challenge competition that was held at the Boston Federal Reserve. Again our students did very well, just barely missing the finals.

There were five groups with five universities competing in each group. The school with the highest score in each group moves on to the finals. Every year the competition level gets higher. In our group, the five scores ranged from 80 to a high of 91. We were close to making the finals, our team had a score of 88.5. We are proud of our students’ accomplishments.

The participating students were Sam Berkun, Tyler Dibrino, Michelle Grieco, Marisa Infante, Joe Mortimer, James Rice, Brianna Sullivan, Kyle Tesei and Ajshe Zulfi.

The faculty advisers were Derek Johnson and Owen Svalestad.

Exploring Career Paths in Business and Economics

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Panel Discussion, Stamford Campus

The annual Alumni Networking Panel, co-organized by Stamford Campus Economics Faculty, CLAS Alumni Relations, and UConn Foundation, was held March 26, 2019.

The panelists, all UConn alumni, shared stories about their UConn education to the contribution to their career paths.  Mr. Bianchi (majored in Economics) shared that he arrived as a UConn freshman majoring in pre-med, and his class in Principles of Macroeconomics with Professor Polly Allen forever changed his career path, and the skills learned in the Econometrics course taught by Professor Subhash Ray sparked a lifelong interest in quantitative analysis.

Mr. Regan (majored in Economics) shared that his choice of major was inspired by Professor Derek Johnson’s Principles of Microeconomics course, and the Socratic teaching style in Professor Paul Tomolonis’s course in International Economics.

Ms. Daley, and Ms. Pierre-Louis (Public Policy and Psychology majors) shared that from their courses in statistics and computer programming they developed skills core to their successful career paths.  Professor Harmon served as panel moderator.

For more information about the panel click here.

Econ Undergraduate Students Present at the Boston Fed Challenge

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Congratulations to the undergraduate students from the Storrs campus who took part in the College Fed Challenge!

Tyler DiBrino, Gabriel Hack, Max Karsanow, Ari Nishimura-Gasparian, John Roberts, Alexander Rojas, Joaquin Sanchez, and Timothy Sullivan all participated on behalf of the University of Connecticut – Storrs in the 2017 Fed Challenge held at the Boston Fed on Friday, November 3rd. The students, and their faculty advisors Derek Johnson and Owen Svalestad, are shown at left in Boston.

Sponsored by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the “College Fed Challenge is a team competition for undergraduate students. Teams analyze economic and financial conditions and formulate a monetary policy recommendation, modeling the Federal Open Market Committee.”

Two Economics Undergraduate Students Selected as 2017 University Scholars

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Congratulations to Economics students Rebecca Hill and Lucas Silva Lopes, who are among the twenty-three University of Connecticut undergraduates who have been selected as the 2017 University Scholars:

Rebecca Hill
Major: English/Economics
Project Title: The Western Madwoman: A Feminist History and Economic Study in Novel Form
Committee: Ellen Litman, English (chair), Veronica Makowsky, English & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Delia Furtado, Economics

Lucas Silva Lopes
Major: Political Science/Economics
Project Title: Presidential Interruptions and Interim Presidents: How Do Latin American Countries Re-Equilibrate Both Politically and Macroeconomically After a Presidential Interruption?
Committee: Matthew Singer, Political Science (chair), Veronica Herrera, Political Science, Derek Johnson, Economics

“The University Scholar Program is one of the most prestigious programs for undergraduates at the University of Connecticut. Available to students from all of the University’s schools and colleges, the University Scholar Program allows students to design and pursue an in-depth research or creative project and to craft an individualized plan of study that supports their intellectual interests during their final three semesters. Each student is mentored by an advisory committee of three faculty.

No more than 30 University Scholars are selected each year. Admission is based on an application submitted during the first semester of a student’s junior year. Applications are reviewed by an interdisciplinary faculty committee that looks for innovative projects and academically rigorous course selection. Graduation as a University Scholar recognizes a student’s exceptional engagement in research and/or creative endeavors.”

universityscholars.uconn.edu