Award
Celebrating the 2024 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.
2026 - Mahyar Rezazadeh
Mahyar is a PhD candidate in Economics at Simon Fraser University. His primary field of interest is Applied Microeconomics. His current research interests include environmental and labor economics. He enjoys applied microeconomics because it provides a framework for using real-world data to answer policy-relevant questions and understand economic behavior.
After graduation, he hopes to continue working on applied research and use empirical economics to address questions relevant to policy, industry, and organizations.
2026 -Pêngdéwendé Carmel Marie F. Zagre
Originally from Burkina Faso, I moved to Canada in 2017 to pursue my studies. I completed my undergraduate degree in Economics and Finance in Montreal before joining SFU in 2021 for my master's degree and subsequently continuing into the PhD program.
My journey into economics began somewhat by chance. When choosing my undergraduate program, I was deciding between mathematics, accounting, and economics, and I ultimately chose economics without any particularly elaborate reasoning. I initially developed an interest in macroeconomics but later shifted toward microeconomics, partly because I found it more challenging. When deciding on my PhD research direction, I wanted to challenge myself intellectually, and I can now confidently confirm that I have succeeded in that regard!
My research interests lie at the intersection of political economy, behavioral economics, and development economics. I am particularly interested in how people form beliefs, how lived experiences shape their attitudes and decisions, and how beliefs are transmitted across generations. My current research includes studying the effects of terrorism on political preferences in Burkina Faso and exploring intergenerational belief transmission.
Outside academia, I am someone who loves trying different hobbies. I am currently learning to sew and love playing the piano. I also have an entrepreneurial side. I co-own a business in Burkina Faso with my sisters, which allows me to stay connected to my home country in a different way.
2026 - Richmond Tetteh
Richmond Tetteh is a PhD candidate in Economics at Simon Fraser University, where he began his doctoral studies in 2022. His academic background brings together economics, mathematics, and computational methods, with a Master of Science (MSc) in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Simon Fraser University. His primary fields of interest are empirical macroeconomics and applied econometrics, with research examining inflation, energy markets, geopolitical conflicts, and the effects of conventional and unconventional monetary policy. A particular focus of this work is understanding how macroeconomic shocks and policy changes, especially those arising from geopolitical tensions, affect economic outcomes. He is also interested in econometric methodology and has developed testing procedures for statistical inference, contributing to the broader toolkit used in theoretical and applied econometric analysis.
Looking beyond his doctoral studies, he aims to build a research career in research institutions or in academia, contributing to work on the economic and policy questions that motivate his research and to the broader understanding of economic issues.
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.
2024 - Uzair Azmat
Uzair joined Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) Department of Economics in 2020 as part of the PhD program after completing his Master’s degree at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He has also cleared all levels of the Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) desgination (USA). His research interests lie in financial economics and macroeconomics, with a special focus on how housing markets respond to alternative mortgage contracts. He has presented his research on reference dependence behavior in risk-sharing mortgages and its impact on default rates at multiple conferences in Canada, the UK, and France.
In addition, Uzair has published a paper in the Journal of Real Estate Research. He is currently investigating debt-averse borrowers and their influence on interest rates, prepayment rates, and contract selection. Beyond his research, Uzair takes great pride in teaching economics, where he enriches his classes by incorporating his research and fostering critical thinking.
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.
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.
2025 - Jeff Hsieh
Jeff Hsieh earned his BA and MA in Economics from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, and began his PhD in Economics at Simon Fraser University in 2020. His research focuses on consumer demand, econometrics, and machine learning, with a particular interest in modelling consumer behaviour to study welfare issues such as resource distribution within households and cost-of-living analysis. Over the past five years, Jeff worked as a teaching assistant, where he developed a passion for helping students engage deeply with economic concepts. He emphasizes critical thinking, logical reasoning, and clear communication as essential skills for both academic success and professional growth. After completing his PhD, Jeff plans to continue his career in academia, contributing to research and teaching the next generation of economics students.
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.
2026 - Yang Li
I joined SFU as an MA student in Fall 2025. (Yes, you like math, and you are good at it. Well, maybe not good enough. (Then you start to think about what the criteria for "good enough" are.)
Empirical evidence, tested with econometric tools, gives me solid grounds to look at what actually happened. Theoretical models give me a lens for understanding why. They are both fascinating, and so far no one has made me choose between them. Answering a meaningful question with a clear lens and carefully tested evidence gives me a lot of pleasure.
Before joining SFU, I completed my undergraduate and master's degrees in China, where I spent about seven years studying trade theory and evidence. Then my interest wandered, as interests should, toward development economics and gender economics. During my MA program, I had the chance to work on two questions: how pension policy shapes family economic behavior (with Xinhao Dong), and how gender norms interact with economic decisions (opportunities) inside families. Along the way, I received wonderful feedback from professors and peers.
After my MA, I began my PhD, and I continue to work on these fascinating questions. I try to approach them in a humble and competent manner. The humble part is doable. As for the competent part, let’s try our best.
Outside academia, I go birding and hiking, and I read (as most PhD students do).
James Dean Award
Named after the late emeritus professor James Dean, this award is given to the student with the best ECON 900 paper.
2026 - Hossein Jalili Bolhassani
Hossein Jalili Bolhassani is a PhD student in economics at Simon Fraser University. He joined SFU’s PhD program in Fall 2024 after completing his MA in Economics at SFU. His research interests lie in macroeconomics, monetary policy, banking, and applied econometrics, with a focus on how aggregate shocks and policy changes affect different groups within the economy.
His awarded ECON 900 paper, “The Distributional Effects of Foreign Tariffs in Exporting Small Open Economies,” studies how foreign-imposed tariffs affect households in an exporting small open economy through sectoral wages, relative prices, capital income, and costly labor-market adjustment. The paper is motivated by export-dependent economies such as Canada and examines why workers and households may experience unequal welfare losses even when aggregate effects are modest.
Hossein is currently developing research on macroeconomic policy, financial frictions, banking, and heterogeneous households. He has also worked as a teaching assistant and research assistant in the Department of Economics. After completing his PhD, he hopes to continue working on policy-relevant macroeconomic research in academia, government, or international policy institutions.
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.
Shiva and Elizabeth Nanda Graduate Scholarship in Economics
Offered annually to students pursuing a graduate degree in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in the Department of Economics, who are in excellent academic standing, have demonstrated academic excellence and show promise of outstanding achievement with particular emphasis on research ability and originality.
2024 - Niloufar Eslah
I graduated with my master's degree from the University of Calgary, and joined SFU’s Department of Economics in the fall of 2024. I am currently a PhD student passionate about pursuing research. Macroeconomics, and economics as a whole, are about studying real life. I enjoy using economic tools in research to uncover the unknown. For me, macroeconomics offers a broader, clearer view of the real world through a wide lens. Following graduation I plan to continue my journey in research, deepening my understanding of the world we live in.