Economics Alumni Updates

Spring 2018

D. Mark Anderson, PhD '11

Mark, an associate professor at Montana State University, named a faculty research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Jeff Roe, BA '88

Jeff, the President and CEO of Premera Blue Cross, named the department's Distinguished Alumnus.

Karam Dana, BA '02

Karam won a UW Distinguished Teaching Award for his work as an assistant professor at UW Bothell.

Spring 2017

Gita Gopinath, MA '96

Gita, the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics at Harvard University, was appointed the department's Distinguished Alumna.

Summer 2016

Brent Grundberg, BA '06

Brent founded and is Partner at Glendale Energy Capital in Houston, Texas, in July. Glendale Capital specializes in investment management of North American energy.  

Kemal Özhan, PhD '16

Kemal will be taking a position as assistant professor of economics at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.  

Spring 2016

Maximilien (Max) Rae, BA '10

Max took a position at Barclays in London following graduation and is currently a senior product manager responsible for the development and delivery of young adult retail banking. 

John Quinlan, BA '03

John earned a Master's in Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University and worked for approximately seven years at the White House's Office of Management and Budget. He is now Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet).  FirstNet was created to develop one of the largest Federal public-private partnership to provide a financially sustainable broadband network for public safety users. He has two sons and resides in Washington, DC.

Alex Hubbard, PhC

Alex will be moving to San Francisco to take a position with Moody's Analytics as an economist and assitant director of Research.

Fall 2015

Michael Hansen, PhD '09

Mike has taken a position as Deputy Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. 

Nina Sidneva, PhD '08

Nina recently started a position with Starbucks as Senior Treasury Analyst, Commodity Risk Management. She also self-published her first cookbook, "Nina's Kitchen: A Collection of Favorite Recipes" with CreateSpace. 

Kai Deng, PhD '15

Kai was hired as assistant professor of Economics at Renmin University in Beijing, China.

Summer 2015

Kelli Trosvig, BA '92

Kelli, Vice President for UW Information Technology and CIO, has been named lead Executive Sponsor of the UW Hr/Payroll Modernization project. In this capacity, she assumes responsibility for the project's strategic direction and overall success. 

Pym Manopimoke, PhD '10

Pym joined the Bank of Thailand in July 2015 as Senior Economist, located in Bangkok.

Cailey McCabe, BA '15

Cailey will be headed to Bangkok, Thailand in August 2015 to intern with the United Nations as as business and development intern with the UN ESCAP Program. In this role Cailey will be conducting research and economic modeling. 

Winter 2015

Jamie Goh, BS ’12

Jamie is a research analyst in the U.S. Public Finance and Global Infrastructure Group at Fitch Ratings, focusing on statistical analysis of key metrics within each sector, generating industry and sector specific research topics, and building analytical tools to drive quantitative analysis. She contributes monthly posts to Fitch’s The Why Forum as well as co-authoring articles about economic trends for the Hearst Connecticut newspapers.

Fall 2014

Santanu Chatterjee, PhD ’01

Dr. Chatterjee was appointed Director of the Full-Time MBA program at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business in August 2014.

Cailyn Torpie, BA ‘12

Cailyn is completing the second year of her volunteer commitment with the Peace Corps as a youth development coordinator in the Province of Nan in northern Thailand. While an undergraduate in the department, Cailyn spent a year studying abroad in Bolzano, Italy though the Economics student exchange program.

Spring 2014

Tom Nesslein, PhD ’92

Dr. Nesslein is Chair of the Department of Economics, as well as the interdisciplinary program in Urban and Regional Studies, at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay.

Matthew White, BA ’05

After completing his BA in economics at UW, Matt graduated at the top of his class from Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Academy in Las Vegas and worked in several Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe and the U.S. before moving to Singapore in 2011 to work as a restaurant consultant. At 20 years old, a traffic accident left Matt with two torn ligaments and a shattered knee cap. A doctor told him that he would never run again. He didn’t get the message. After 6 months of rehabilitation, he went back to skiing, mountain biking and extreme endurance sports. To date, Matt has completed more than 40 triathlons including his first Ironman in Australia this year. Matt is environmentally-aware, and all of his restaurants use electric bicycles for deliveries, large format packaging and local suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint. His newest project, a fast casual pizzeria & wine bar, will use no plastic, wine, or beer bottles.

Letian Chang, BS ’13

After graduating from UW with a double major in economics and math, with College Honors, Letian began the Master’s in Statistics program at Yale University, where she was recently selected to be Nobel Laureate Professor Robert Schiller’s teaching Fellow.

Drew Creal, PhD ’07

Dr. Creal was promoted to Associate Professor of Econometrics and Statistics and granted tenure at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.

Jun Ma, PhD ’07

Dr. Ma was promoted to Associate Professor of Economics and granted tenure at the University of Alabama in the Culverhouse College of Commerce. He is currently Guest Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame.

Alan Haynie, PhD ’05

Dr. Haynie has been awarded a 2013 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on professionals in these fields in the early stages of their independent research careers. Dr. Haynie, a specialist in natural resource economics and fisheries management, has been an economist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) since 2004 in the Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

Layth Matthews, BA ’82

Layth recently published “The Four Noble Truths of Wealth: A Buddhist View of Economic Life.” A meditation instructor, economist, and mortgage broker, Layth presents Buddhism’s foundation teaching with examples from modern economic life. Layth lives in Victoria, BC, and serves as the Department’s regional alumni representative for the area.

Fall 2013

Hanyao (Steven) Wang, BS ’12

Steven accepted a position as Strategic Analytics Intern at BMO Capital Markets in Chicago. Previously, he was a risk analyst intern with Piper Jaffray.

Jeffrey E. Roe, BA ’88

Jeff has been appointed President of the Premera family of companies effective January 1, 2014. In this capacity he will be responsible for the company’s day-to-day leadership. Jeff joined Premera in 1996, managing the company’s communications and marketing functions. Company CEO Gubby Barlow says of him, “Jeff has distinguished himself as an adept strategist, team-builder, and leader.”

Kelvin K. Wong, BS ’09

Kelvin was awarded first place in the 2nd Annual Economist Educators Best in Class Awards from Cengage Learning. Kelvin was a student assistant extraordinaire for the department as an undergrad, and is now a graduate student in economics at the University of Minnesota.

Mary LaBissoniere, BS ’10 and Eric Rothlisberger, BS ’10

Mary and Eric celebrated their nuptials in September 2013, shortly after their purple and gold renovated house barge was featured on Yahoo.com Real Estate in an article titled, “What It’s Like to Live on a Houseboat.”

Spring 2013

Rob McKenna, BA ’85

After 17 years in public office, former Washington State Attorney General and last year’s Republican candidate for governor will return to private practice with the Seattle office of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe LLP as a partner, where his focus will be public policy and data privacy issues.

Krisztina Nagy, PhD ’11

Dr. Nagy was hired as a tenure-track assistant professor of economics at Pacific Lutheran University, effective fall 2013. She will teach macroeconomics, statistics, and international economics in the undergraduate program and finance courses to graduate students in the business school in MBA and Master’s programs.

Noah Purcell, BA ’02

Noah Purcell was named Solicitor General for the Washington State attorney general’s office in January. A Seattle native, Purcell went to Franklin High School. After graduating from UW, Purcell attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Before this appointment, Purcell was an attorney with Seattle’s Perkins Coie.

David Schumacher, BA ’86, MA ’90

In January David Schumacher was named by Governor Jay Inslee (also a UW economics alumnus) as Director of the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM). He has worked as an Economic Analyst at the Department of Revenue, Policy Analyst at OFM, and was a Ways and Means Committee staffer for eight years before being named Staff Director.


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