Hello, alumni and friends!

Autumn has again brought a set of fresh faces to the Dalhousie Economics Department: new undergraduate students, new graduate students, and, we are pleased to announce, two new faculty members! Nicholas Lawson’s profile appears in this issue of EconMatters, and Álvaro Parra will be profiled in our Winter 2025 issue.

One of our outstanding alumni is profiled in this issue: Sarah Burns (BA (Honours) 2019). Thank you to Sarah for sharing her career experiences.

This issue also includes profiles of our three Economics staff members: our administrator, Jodi Lawrence; our graduate administrative assistant, Gina Harnish; and our department secretary, Marilin Peña Pupo. I hope you enjoy getting to know them.

Our Research Spotlight shines some light on the work of Álvaro Parra and Lars Osberg.

I would like to recognize several recent Economics award winners.

- Ruth Forsdyke received the Department of Economics Teaching Award for 2024. The nomination letters recognized her as an innovative, thoughtful instructor with “legendary” PowerPoint slides.

- Carlos Arango and Nicolle Jaramillo were awarded the U.L.G. Rao Memorial Prize in Economics for writing the best master’s theses of the 2023-24 academic year.

- Stivi Canka was awarded the University Medal in Economics for 2024 as recognition for being the top honours student graduating in 2024.

- Stella Edney and Sareh Rahmati were awarded the Economics Teaching Assistant Award for 2023-24.

- Economics student prizes for 2023-24 were awarded to: Jaegar Laird (Principles of Economics Prize), Ilaria Di Matteo (Economic Theory Prize), Owen Bisal (Econometrics Prize), Stella Edney (Anonymous Prize), Aitong Wu (International Student Essay Prize), and Gabby Sorensen (Economics Honours Thesis Award).

Recent government policy changes regarding international students have had a financial impact on Dalhousie, and we are, as always, concerned with supporting our hard-working students. We very much appreciate the alumni, families, and friends who have donated to our scholarship and bursary funds (through giving.dal.ca) to help us support student excellence as well as financial need.

All the best,

Tess Cyrus

Associate Professor and Chair