Eva Van Leemput, Ph.D. 2015
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
I graduated from Notre Dame in 2015 and I am currently a principal economist in the International Finance Division at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where I am part of the Emerging Market Economies (EME) section.…
Julio Garin, Ph.D. 2012
Associate Professor
Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College
I graduated from Notre Dame in 2012 and I'm currently an associate professor in the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont Mckenna College.
Besides the professional opportunities, it is hard to overstate the impact Notre Dame had on my intellectual life. The training I received provided me with tools and skills that allowed me to answer questions as diverse as the environment I faced during my graduate studies. However, it did more than that, it reinforced my curiosity and eagerness for understanding aspects of human behavior that started way before I learned what a budget constraint was.
Those two aspects are quite instrumental for an individual seeking to push the frontier as well as help those inside -- our students--, to get closer to it.
Beth Munnich, Ph.D. 2013
Assistant Professor of Economics
University of Louisville
At ND, I gained tools to critically and thoughtfully approach research questions, and conduct rigorous empirical studies about social issues.
Working directly with Economics faculty was undoubtedly the most formative part of my experience at ND. Their support and mentorship throughout my graduate work and beyond has been invaluable in helping me develop as an economist.
William (Bill) Leahy recently retired from active teaching and research in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. His retirement became effective July 1, 2020, at which point he assumed the status of emeritus professor of economics.
Bill’s retirement came after 54 consecutive years of teaching economics at Notre Dame. A triple Domer who received his BA, MA, and PhD from Notre Dame, Bill joined the faculty of the Department of Economics as an assistant professor in 1966. He was promoted to associate professor in 1969 and full professor in 1975. For many years, he served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies and/or the Director of Undergraduate Advising for economics majors.
Jeffrey R. Campbell has been appointed the Frances D. Rasmus and Jerome A. Castellini Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. His appointment became effective at the start of the spring semester in 2021, after having served as a visiting professor in the department in the fall semester of 2019. Campbell comes to Notre Dame after a distinguished career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester. He received his PhD in economics from Northwestern University in 1995.
.
At Notre Dame, Choi chose to major in economics and enjoyed pursuing courses on statistics and the economics of education for her major, as well as classwork in psychology and theology. Now, after a cookbook, a doctoral degree, and a spot on the Cooking Channel, she’s using emerging technology and her extensive knowledge of the role food plays in people’s lives to reinvent the idea of a recipe.
Christopher Waller, the former Gilbert Schaefer Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, has been confirmed to the Federal Reserve’s seven-member Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. Waller, executive vice president and director of research at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday with a vote of 48-47.
Each summer and school year, a dimly lit computer lab in the basement of Jenkins-Nanovic Hall on Notre Dame’s campus hums with the activity of undergraduate interns working to find solutions to complex, poverty-related issues. As an intern for the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, Emily Merola ’20 helped collect data for the Catholic Charities Fort Worth's Stay the Course project and Padua program. “It was really great to be close to the actual operations of the provider and know that each data point is a person,” Merola said. “I think everybody knows, but sometimes you need that salient reminder.”
The Homeless Prevention Call Center for the City of Chicago, currently run by Catholic Charities of Chicago, has helped thousands of families stay off the streets. Knowing funding for public programs is never guaranteed, it wanted to prove its method was cost effective and impactful. In 2012, it approached Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) for assistance. Could LEO researchers measure the call center’s effectiveness rather than volume?
Whether he’s studying in Uganda or France, South Africa or South Bend — or speaking English, Luganda, French, or Swahili — Trevor Lwere has one topic at the forefront of his mind. No matter where he is, the economics and global affairs major is driven to investigate what different cultures and perspectives can teach each other about forming the best society. “Every time I move to a different place, I get curious about how different societies imagine how they should be organized and how they approach life,” he said.
Three new members of the regular faculty and one visiting professor have joined the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame for the 2020-2021 academic year. These additions come on top of several years of impressive growth. The department now boasts 44 members of the regular faculty, up from 34 in the 2015-2016 academic year.…
At Notre Dame, senior Emily Pohl found a passion for social change — and put it into action. An international economics major with a concentration in French, Pohl worked to combat the cycle of poverty by researching and implementing microfinance initiatives. She is graduating with a portfolio of real-world research experiences, a published journal article, and a position at LEK Consulting in Chicago. And it was her Arts and Letters education that empowered her to take action.
Georgia Twersky loves diving deep into data when she’s studying economics. But her experiences at Notre Dame have helped her see the value of understanding the people behind the numbers, as well. An international economics major with a Spanish concentration and a minor in peace studies, the senior has found numerous ways that her academic disciplines support one another, preventing her from missing perspectives that might be lost by focusing on just one area.
One of the greatest assets of a Notre Dame degree is the University’s incredible global network. But those connections aren’t only with alumni — senior Nick Gabriele believes that, sometimes, the most important mentors can be fellow students. Gabriele, an economics and Spanish major who will begin working as a consultant with McKinsey & Company after graduation, launched Consulting Connect — an organization designed to educate students about the diverse field of consulting, prepare them for the recruiting process, and connect them with potential employers.
Notre Dame faculty member and alumnus Carlos Lozada, the nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post, is the recipient of a 2019 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, journalism’s highest honor. In announcing the award April 15, the Pulitzer jurors cited Lozada “for trenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience.”
Taking a traditional path never much interested Mark Winkler ’11. He knew he wanted to go to medical school, but he sought something beyond a strictly science-based course of study. He says his majors in economics and Arts and Letters pre-health led to him to where he is now — a graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine and a resident physician in radiology and biomedical imaging at the University of California, San Francisco.
By the time children are 5 years old, there is already a distinct gap between those ready for kindergarten and those who aren’t. And for the children who lag behind — most often those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds — that gap may never close. Chloe Gibbs ’00 wants to determine how preschool can best prepare those children for kindergarten and for success later in life. An assistant professor in the Department of Economics, she has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for her project, Parenting, Preschool, and the Production of School Readiness and Later Academic Outcomes.
Four alumni of Notre Dame’s international economics program returned to campus in March to speak to current students about their experience with the major, valuable classes they took, and the skills they developed that are now paying dividends in the real world
Six new faculty have joined the Department of Economics this year, bringing expertise in a wide variety of subfields and significant experience conducting research at the federal level. The new additions — professor of the practice Timothy Dunne; assistant professors Kirsten Cornelson, Illenin Kondo, Benjamin Pugsley, and Jasmine Xiao; and research assistant professor Sarah Kroeger — join a department undergoing remarkable growth. It has added 22 faculty members in the last five years, thanks in part to its selection as one of 10 essential research areas through the University’s Advancing Our Vision program.
When Francesco Tassi arrived at Notre Dame, he was sure he would major in finance. But a lecture on refugees set him on a different path — one that led him to travel through Italy for three months to study refugee integration firsthand. Tassi, who was born in Italy and moved to the United States in third grade, traveled widely in high school and spent time living with host families in several countries. Those experiences sparked a passion for learning about and understanding cultures.