Dear Friends of the Department,
Welcome to our 2025 spring newsletter! We are pleased to update you on our latest news and invite you to engage with us through our online publication and more.
This spring semester, we hired new Assistant Professors Josh Higbee and Carolyn Tsao! Josh’s expertise is empirical IO and Carolyn’s is labor economics (she will join the department in 2026). We also hired a new lecturer Meng Yu. The department also welcomes Nikki Skunza as our new department manager and Skye Stevens as the new JMCB coordinator. Since last fall, three of our faculty members have had their research papers newly accepted in the Top 5 journals in economics. Congratulations to Kyle Dempsey, Kurt Lavetti, and Myles Wagner on their accomplishments! For more details, see publications link.
This spring, Bruce Weinberg (a senior faculty member) was elected as a fellow of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). This is a prestigious honor to any scholar! Other awards for our faculty include Meta Brown (her research team includes an Econ Emeritus Faculty Don Haurin), who received a one-year research grant from the University of Wisconsin's Retirement and Disability Research Center. Along with SUNY-Albany and Kenyon, Bruce Weinberg got a $550K grant from the Sloan Foundation to study the economic effects of research doctorates.
In AY24-25 the department had 13 PhD students on the job market. All of them found good jobs. The notable academic placements (tenure track assistant professors) include UC Riverside (Han Wang), Florida State University (Hyoeun Park), and Colgate University (Matthew D’Urso). This spring we admitted 19 PhD students. All of them have financial support, with most of them being offered fellowships.
Other AY24-25 award winners include the following graduate students: Sooa Ahn and Bobby Daniel have been awarded the Tom Kniesner and Debbie Freund Award, which recognizes graduate students for their high-quality research in econometrics or health economics. Youngjae Jeong and Bill Wang were awarded the G.S. Maddala Prize in Econometrics. The Maddala prize was established in 1999 to honor Dr. Maddala’s work in the field of econometrics, which recognizes graduate students for excellence in quantitative research using econometrics. Sooa Ahn, Sunmin Kim, and Vaasavi Unnava have been awarded the Larry and Shelia Kantor Award in recognition of their service to the graduate student population in the department. Sangdong Kim, Jiani Liu, and Sanghwa Moon received Departmental Graduate Associate Teaching Awards (GATA) and Gokce Dogan and Youngjae Jeong received Departmental Citations for Excellence in Teaching (DCET).
The following undergraduate students also received awards in AY24-25: Jeremiah Bradley received The Michael O’Shaughnessy Endowed Fund in Economics awards, which acknowledges undergraduate Economics majors who are high potential business-minded students. Alyssa Burke received an award from the Harold A. Black Endowed Scholarship Fund for Economics which acknowledges Undergraduate Economics Majors who have overcome substantial educational or economic obstacles and have potential for graduate work. Mandy Chen and Arya Gadre received the Robinson Family Scholarship in Economics which is awarded to one or more outstanding undergraduate Economics majors who graduated from high schools in Atlanta, GA, Franklin KY or the State of Ohio. Janiah Foster received The Tom Kniesner and Debbie Freund Fund for Student Support award for first-generation students with demonstrated financial need.
This January the department launched a fundraising campaign for graduate students, the purpose of which is to offer fellowships to first-year students and give upper-year students summer support. The department matches the donations dollar for dollar. The fundraising campaign has been largely successful. Thank all the alumni who made generous donations to our graduate students.
Finally, the renovation of the new home of the department, Bricker Hall, is on schedule. The inner spaces have taken shape! The planned moving date is the summer of 2026.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT:
Undergraduate student, Ryan Fabian, was the winner of the Scott Gledhill Prize in Applied Economics for the paper, “State-Level Unemployment and Online Math Learning Tools Usage.” The fund was established in 2013 with a generous gift from alumnus and Economics Advisory Board member, Scott Gledhill.
Graduate student, Han Wang (Professional Website), just had his paper “Contracting with Heterogeneous Researchers” accepted by Games and Economic Behavior, the top field journal in game theory.
ALUMNI HIGHLIGHTS:
Tayfun Tuzun received his PhD in Economics from Ohio State in 1992 and is currently Chief Financial Officer at BMO Financial Group in Toronto.
Ali Wolf received her BS in Econ from Ohio State about 20 years ago and is now Chief Economist for Zonda, the largest data provider for the new home market in North America.
We hope that you will enjoy reading our newsletter. And as always, we encourage you to consider donating funds to help support our departmental activities or serve as a mentor for a current Economics student. Please also follow the department’s LinkedIn page.
We want to hear from you! Please complete this short survey to update us on your career and personal accomplishments. We look forward to including some brief alumni updates in our next newsletter. https://osu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6JBQskXq10ZMYNo
College of Arts and Sciences - Department of Economics
410 Arps Hall
1945 N High St, Columbus, OH 43210
