Award
Meet the 2022 SFU Economics graduate award winners
Congratulations to our graduate students whose outstanding academic performance and passion for economics has earned them this year's Department of Economics student awards.
Lang Wong Memorial Endowment Scholarship
Named in memory of Lang Wong who devoted over 50 years of his life to the cause of international development, this award is presented to an outstanding international graduate student who has demonstrated academic excellence.
2022 - Uzair Azmat
Uzair started the Ph.D. program in economics at SFU in 2020 after finishing his Masters degree in economics at Lahore University of Management Sciences. His research interests are in financial economics and consumption models, especially in issues about pricing alternative mortgages and analyzing homeowner’s welfare. Uzair has also passed all the levels for CFA and has published a paper in Journal of Real Estate Research.
2022 - Babak Sahragard
Babak joined SFU Economics department as a PhD student in 2021, after completing a Masters degree at the University of Calgary. His primary fields of interest are decision theory, mechanism design and political economy. His main objective is to take advantage of brilliant faculty members and enriching experience at the department to develop skills for an academic career after graduation.
2022 - Shayan Zarifian Sanatkar
Shayan started his Ph.D. in Economics at Western University in 2019. He did his bachelors in Industrial Engineering at Sharif University of Technology and his masters in Economics at SFU. After passing the comprehensive exams and all the materials of the first year of the Ph.D. program, he transferred back to SFU continuing from the second year. His main research interests are empirical industrial organization, applied microeconomics, and applied econometrics."
SHIVA AND ELIZABETH NANDA GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP IN ECONOMICS
Established in 2021 with a generous gift from Shiva and Elizabeth Nanda, the fellowship is intended to provide financial support to students pursuing their doctoral degree at Simon Fraser University's Department of Economics.
2022 - Minoru Higa-Reyes
Minoru moved to Vancouver together with his wife and son to start the Ph.D. in Economics at Simon Fraser University (SFU). He got his B.A. in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP), and his Master's in Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara (USA) and Tilburg University (Netherlands). He is an entrepreneurial economist with the ability to communicate with various audiences and with teaching experience. He performs advanced econometrics analysis and uses his cloud computing, machine learning, and spatial data analysis skills to work with large-scale datasets, such as semi-structure smartphone Big Data, satellite data, household surveys, and administrative records. He has published in academic journals and presented at several academic conferences. While at SFU, he teamed up with his wife and won several SFU Student-Community Engagement grants to implement social impact projects in Vancouver. Currently, he is conducting research in the fields of Environmental and Labor Economics.
Meiyu Li Memorial Scholarship in Economics
Created in the memory of PhD candidate Meiyu Li, this entrance scholarship will go toward supporting outstanding international graduate students, like Meiyu, who are pursuing research in the Department of Economics.
2022 - Emilie Zentner
Emilie Zentner joined SFU Economics in Fall 2022 and she is excited to further her education at one of Canada’s top PhD economics programs. She joins SFU from the University of Alberta’s Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology where she completed her BSc. and MSc. in Agriculture and Resource Economics with a focus on behavioural and experimental economics. Her thesis on the role of reciprocity on cooperative behaviour in public goods games won her faculty’s graduate student MSc. thesis award in 2021. Emilie has over seven years experience in applied economics research ranging from benefit distributions of agricultural biotechnology, impacts of resource development on Indigenous peoples, and economics experiments in public goods games. Emilie’s current research specializations are behavioural and experimental economics and psychological game theory in a climate change context. Emilie is excited to bring her experience in student engagement from her time as departmental GSA chair to SFU Economics, and expand her collaborative and international research network.
Peter Kennedy Memorial Graduate Fellowship
Named after the late professor Peter Kennedy, this award is presented to the outstanding graduate student who has demonstrated academic and teaching excellence.
2022 - Marieh Azizirad
Marieh joined the Department of Economics at Simon Fraser University in the Fall semester of 2017. Her research focus is Monetary Economics and she uses theoretical, empirical, and experimental methods. Her focus is mainly on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy on the economy, particularly on inflation. Marieh is a versatile researcher who is passionate about finding answers to her research questions by employing her skills. She also enjoys passing on her knowledge to the younger generations through teaching. Marieh has been serving as an instructor and a TA since she joined SFU. Her evaluations continued to improve until they were only positive.
Peter Kennedy memorial graduate entrance scholarship in economics
This fellowship is awarded to to a doctoral student who demonstrate academic excellence and promise of outstanding achievement with particular emphasis on intellectual ability, originality and ability in research and the potential for significant contribution to the field of economics.
2022 - P. Marie Zagre
P. Marie Zagre joined SFU in the fall semester of 2021 for her master's degree. At first, she was interested in macroeconomics and applied econometrics. Her interest in econometrics stems from her love of programming and data. She loves the demanding challenges she faces when she has to program an algorithm, and the intellectual stimulation this provides. She has always liked the academic environment and takes pleasure in learning new things.
In 2022 Zagre started started her doctorate at SFU. Her field of interest has changed - while she still has an interest in macroeconomics, she has also developed an interest in behavioral and experimental economics, in short, a more microeconomic side.
In her free time Zagre swims, plays the piano and loves to read.
Herbert G. Grubel Award
This award is given to the graduating MA student with the highest cumulative grade point average (CGPA) obtained in the MA required courses during the preceding Fall and Spring terms.
2022 - P. Marie Zagre
I joined SFU in the fall semester of 2021 for my master's degree. At first, I was interested in macroeconomics and applied econometrics.
My interest in economics was pure chance. After my high school, I chose this field of study because it seemed more concrete to me than mathematics (another field in which I was interested). Attending my baccalaureate classes gave me a taste for what I was studying, especially macroeconomics. This is an area that both fascinated and intrigued me. Regarding econometrics, I think my interest stems from my love of programming and data. I love the demanding challenges I face when I have to program an algorithm, it stimulates me intellectually.
Right after my baccalaureate, I continued my master's. Indeed, I have always liked the academic environment and I take pleasure in learning new things. My field of interest has changed over the course of my master's program. I still have an interest in macroeconomics but have also developed an interest in behavioral and experimental economics, in short, a more microeconomic side.
James Dean Award
Named after the late emeritus professor James Dean, this award is given to the student with the best ECON 900 paper.
2022 - Hung Truong
Hung Truong is a Ph.D. student at SFU Economics. His research interests are behavioral macroeconomics with a focus on monetary policy. His dedication to macroeconomics is inspired by the enthusiastic macroeconomics faculty at SFU Economics. The awarded paper, co-authored with Professor Jasmina Arifovic and Associate Professor Isabelle Salle, explores the practicality of a theoretically sound monetary policy in response to turbulent courses of inflation. He is currently a teaching assistant and workshop instructor at SFU teaching economics courses and programming languages for data science. He enjoys both researching and teaching, and is planning to work in academia or the government sector after completing his doctoral study.
Richard G. Lipsey Award
Given to the continuing PhD student with the best comprehensive exam results at the end of their first year, this award is named after emeritus professor Richard Lipsey.
2022 - Babak Sahragard
Babak joined SFU Economics department as a PhD student in 2021, after completing a Masters degree at the University of Calgary. His primary fields of interest are decision theory, mechanism design and political economy. His main objective is to take advantage of brilliant faculty members and enriching experience at the department to develop skills for an academic career after graduation.