News

Congratulations to our 2019 graduates!

Ramsha Jaweed, Econ MA student, wins second prize in the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) Policy Challenge Competition. Competitors came from UBC, Calgary, Western, McMaster, Toronto, and Laval. The competition is an opportunity for students to use their research results to inform real-world Canadian policy-making and propose innovative policy solutions.

The graduate student award winners for the 2018/2019 year are as follows:

The Ken Stollery Graduate Memorial Award: Chulsoon Kim and Gray Boyko, MA students

The Nihar and Mina Bose scholarship: Renfang Tian, PhD student

Macroeconomics award: Ramsha Jaweed, MA student

Microeconomics award: Tong Zhou, MA student

Econometrics award: Wenzuo Xu and Oliver Loertscher, MA students

In an article published in the National Post, Professor Anindya Sen points to a skills gap in data analysis in Canada and, in particular, in our ability to interpret and gain useful insights from the data.  Professor Sen argues that this gap can be partly addressed by training in the the social sciences and humanities, which not only provide perspective in behavioural theories and trends but also aids in spearheading ethics and governance in the data science world.

Congratulations to our PhD student team of Andres Arcila Vasquez, Iuliia Nesterova, John Baker, and Zehua Pan (pictured below), who received third place in the inaugaral Datafest organized by Professor Anindya Sen, Director of the Master of Public Service program on Friday, March 4, 2019. Economics had two MA teams as well - Team 1 - Hongcan Zhang, Keyi Zhang, Sophie Yin, Haochang Li, and Team 2 - Siwei Shen, Wenzuo Xu, Tong Zhou, Yongyun Zhou.

Congratulations to our Economics team who participated in the Bank of Canada’s Governor’s Challenge.  In November 2018, the team presented their recommendations for Canadian monetary policy to a panel of judges. Coached by Professor Jean Paul Lam, the team did a great job of summarizing current key issues in monetary policy. We are proud of our team! Team members from left to right are Austin Coles, Alexander Colenutt, Tijil Dewan, Kamilah Ebrahim, Sin Yeung, and Isil Dogan.

The Arts Young Alumni Award recognizes alumni who have made outstanding contributions in their professional field, in the community, and in public service within 10 years of graduation. This year, the recipient of this award is Mandy Tao, a graduate of the UW Economics program (2011).

This Arts Young Alumni Award is another proud achievement Mandy can add to her already impressive resume. Currently serving as the Director of Strategy at Merck, Mandy has also been busy co-founding "Education Togo Switzerland", learning new languages and climbing volcanoes.

We are happy to announce that an economics team, composed by MA students Ramsha Jaweed and David Kim, has been selected to participate in the National Policy Challenge organized by CRDCN (the research data centre network created by the government to facilitate access to confidential government data). The teams submitted a proposal to analyze aapolicy problem of their own choosing with confidential microdata.

From the Water Insitute's page: 

Last year Waterloo's Department of Economics launched a new graduate and undergraduate elective course on Water Resources Economics (ECON 484/673).

Professor Mikal Skuterud and PhD student Zong Jia Chen studied the labour market performance of former international students with their Canadian counterparts. Check out the report titled, "Comparing Outcomes: The Relative Job-Market Performance of Former International Students".