Recent News and Notes
Recent News
- The Department congratulates Maggie Coughlin, our department's administrative assistant, for winning one of the Spring 2007 WMU "Make a Difference" awards. Maggie will be honored at a luncheon in April, where she will receive a plaque and a check, and is now eligible for one of four Annual Awards. More info can be found here. Congrats Maggie.
- Research by Susan Pozo, along with Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (WMU PhD, 1998) was mentioned on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on November 1, 2006. The article was entitled "Migrants' Money is Imperfect Cure for Poor Nations," and was written by Bob Davis. A link to the article can be found here (http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=953913401&pt=Y)
- The Department would like to welcome Patty Vagnoni as its new office coordinator. Patty's email is here .
Tenure/Promotion/Retirements
- Becky Ryder, one of the department's administrative assistants, retired on July 31st after 23 years with the department. She previously spent 17 years with the history department. We congratulate her on her retirement and wish her the best.
- Donald Meyer was promoted to Professor of Economics.
- James Hueng and Michael Ryan were tenured and promoted to Associate Professor.
More Faculty News
- Susan Pozo is on sabbatical leave for the 2006-07 academic year. She will be in residence at theUniversidad de Montevideo in Montevideo, Uruguay. Pozo has been awarded a Research Scholar grant under the Fulbright-Hays Act and will be performing research on remittances by Uruguayan emigrants.
- The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) recently selected Sisay Asefa to serve on the Economics Peer Review Committee for the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program.
- Michael Ryan recently served as a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Economics at the University of Otago (N.Z.), and also as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Germany).
- Bassam Harik has moved to the Provost's office as Vice Provost for budget and enrollment.
- Jean Kimmel is this year's director of the Werner Sichel Lecture-Seminar Series.
- Don Alexander is this year's director of the Faculty Seminar Series.
Department Receives External Grants/Awards
- Christine Moser
is a U.S. Embassy Science Fellow for Madagascar, 2006. She is funded
by the USDA and serves as an agricultural policy advisor to the Ministry
of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries in Madagascar with a mandate
to
study ways to improve agricultural production and market capacity in the rice and potato markets.
- Susan Pozo has received $138,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes of Health to work on "Remittances and Risk: Evidence from Mexican Migrants." Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes of San Diego State University (WMU PhD, 1998) serves as co-principle investigator of this two-year project that examines various aspects of workers’ remittances, including how the repatriated earnings of immigrant workers relate to the risks facing these workers. Susan can be contacted at susan.pozo@wmich.edu.
- Jean Kimmel has received $64,616 from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research to write a book titled "The Role of Caregiving in Mothers' Time Use: Recent Evidence from the New American Time Use Survey." This is a 2-year project joint with Rachel Connelly (Bowdoin College). Jean can be contacted at jean.kimmel@wmich.edu.
- Jean has also been named a Research Fellow with the Institute for
the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany. Her appointment (effective
May 2005) is for three years. For more information on the IZA, check
http://www.iza.org/.
Ph. D. program places all 5 graduating students
All five of our graduating Ph.D. students were placed in job. Check here for all of the info.
Department's Visiting Scholar
Esther Duflo, Professor of Economics at MIT and the Director of MIT's Poverty Action Lab is the department's 2006-2007 Visiting Scholar. Dr Duflo will visit the department on September 20, 2006.
More information on the visit is forthcoming.
2006 Alumni Achievement Award Winner
Dr. John E. Anderson is the department's 2006 Alumni Achievement Award Winner. Dr. Anderson was recently appointed as Senior Economist of the Council of Economic Advisors for 2005-2006. Dr. Anderson advises on public finance matters and on tax policy issues, two of his areas of expertise. He has published widely on these subject matters in numerous highly regarded academic journals as well as other outlets. Professor Anderson is the Baird Family Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and he has also been the Chairman of the Economics Department there since 2002.
Dr. Anderson received his B.A. in Mathematics and Economics at Western Michigan University in 1973. He went on to get his M.A. (1976) and Ph.D. (1977) degrees in economics at the Claremont Graduate School. Dr. Anderson worked a number of years at Eastern Michigan University before taking a position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1991. Professor Andershon has achieved a distinguished career and has received numerous awards and honors both in the academic arena and in the public and government sectors.
For more information on previous Alumni Achievement Award Winners, click here.
Department of Economics,
College of Arts & Sciences
5307, Friedmann Hall, 1903 West Michigan Avenue
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI 49008
Phone: (269)-387-5535 Fax: (269)-387-5637
Site Contact: Web
Administrator Updated:08/18/2006