BROWN UNIVERSITY - Key Persons
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- Steven Rattner Senior Lecturer in Economics, Vice Director of Undergraduate Studies
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- Assistant Professor of Economics
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- Administrative Coordinator
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- Yang Family Assistant Professor of Economics
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- George and Nancy Parker Professor of Economics
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- Graduate Program Manager, Academic Student Programs Advisor
Biography
Hi! My name is Anna, and I'm a senior from Somerville, MA concentrating in Economics and International & Public Affairs. I'm passionate about economics research, particularly in health, education, and development. I hope to pursue a Ph.D. in economics after graduating from Brown. Within the Brown economics department, I've been an Undergraduate Research Assistant for three professors and an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for two classes (ECON 0110 and ECON 1520). I also love cooking, hiking, the New York Times crossword, and the Boston Red Sox. I'm happy to answer any questions related to course selection and research/TA opportunities in the department.
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- Comfort and Urry Family Senior Lecturer in Economics, Financial Services Industry Advisor, Vice Department Chair
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- IJC Assistant Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs, PhD Track Advisor
Biography
Hi! My name is Celina and I am a senior pursuing a 4-year concurrent Bachelor's in Computer Science and Economics and Master's in Computer Science. At Brown, I am heavily involved with the Economics Department as a Senior Advisor (previously Co-President, Co-Academic, and Technology Chair) to the Economics DUG. I am also a Peer Career Advisor for the Center for Career Exploration, an RA for the Department of Computer Science, and previously, a TA for The Theory and Practice of Sustainable Investing and an RA for the Department of Engineering. Professionally, I have pursued opportunities in software engineering at L3Harris Technologies and technology consulting at Deloitte. In my free time, I enjoy traveling, cooking, and looking at my G-Cal. Feel free to reach out with any questions you may have!
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- President of Brown University, Professor of Economics and Public Policy
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- Associate Professor of Practice of International and Public Affairs
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- James and Merryl Tisch Professor of Economics
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- Assistant Professor of Economics
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- JJE Goldman Sachs University Professor of Economics
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- Visiting Assistant Professor
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- Administrative and Events Coordinator
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- Member of the Steering Committee
- Professor of Economics, Director of Orlando Bravo Center for Economic Research
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- Member of the Steering Committee
- Professor of Economics
Hi! My name is Greta, and I'm a senior concentrating in Applied Math-Econ on the Mathematical Finance track. I've taken a wide variety of Applied Math and Econ courses, and I've also served as a TA in the Applied Math, Econ, and Math departments. This past summer, I interned at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in the NYC office and am returning to the firm full-time. Previously, I interned at a tech startup based in Paris. On campus, I work as a Peer Career Advisor in the Career Center, and I've been involved with the Econ DUG, BCC, and the Applied Math Directed Reading Program. I'm happy to discuss course selection, concentration choice, internships/full-time recruitment, TA-ing, or anything Brown-related. Outside of class, I enjoy running and going to art museums.
Harl Edgar Ryder was born in 1938 in Mr. Vernon, Illinois. After earning a BA and MS from the University of Illinois, he received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University. His career at Brown University spanned the four decades from 1965 to 2005, and he was Chairman of the Economics Department from 1974 to 1981. He was Associate Chair for the graduate program in Economics from 1982 - 1989, held several positions on university committees, and was visiting professor at the University of Bonn during 1981 - 82 and at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1989 - 1990.
Ryder's expertise lay in mathematical economics, which he taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He authored or co-authored several papers appearing in the top general interest journals of the economics discipline, including Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Econometrica. Possibly his most influential papers is Ryder and (Geoffrey) Heal, "Optimal Growth with Intertemporally Dependent Preferences," which appeared in the Review of Economic Studies in 1973. His papers also appeared in top field journals including Journal of Economic Theory and Journal of Mathematical Economics.
Colleagues and former colleagues remember with appreciation Ryder's generosity in offering his time to help them address the mathematical issues arising in their varied research projects. Some evidence appears in the form of as many as seven papers Ryder co-authored with colleagues including the late Martin Beckmann and Herschel Grossman, current faculty members Oded Galor and David Weil, and former department members Gil Skillman and Francis Bloch. But for each such listed paper, there are many others of former Ph.D. students and colleagues on which his suggestions played an important part; he was known as "the go to person" in the department for problems of mathematical modeling. Galor described Ryder as "unique, in the academic world, for his kindness and generosity" and said that "his approach to mathematical problems was impressive and had few parallels."
Generations of Brown faculty, grad students, and their children will remember Harl in his cameo role of Santa Claus. At the high point of our departmental Christmas parties, Santa/Harl would dash around Robinson Hall's rotunda balconies and bound down the metal stairway in full red and white regalia, booming out "ho, ho, ho" in a deep baritone voice made to order for the building's acoustics. Arriving on the crowded ground floor, he'd seat himself on a chair by the well-decorated tree, call each child of our faculty and graduate students' up for his or her turn on his lap, and watch them open their presents with the same delighted smile on his face as when he had solved a math problem.
Job Titles:
- Economics Emeritus
- Herbert Goldberger Professor of Economics
Herschel Grossman, professor of economics at Brown University, died suddenly on October 9, 2004 in Marseilles, France, where he was attending an academic conference. He was 65 years old. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Biography
Hi! I'm Imran, a senior concentrating in Economics & Public Health. I'm especially interested in policy issues at the intersection of those fields and hope to pursue law school in the future. I have been a TA for the department for a few semesters now; I am currently TA for ECON 1629 (Applied Research Methods) and 1487 (Translating Evidence into Economic Policy). Professionally, I recently finished interning for a strategy consulting firm, Bain & Company, and plan to work there after graduation. I identify as substance-free and am also glad to talk through being sub-free at Brown and (from my still-limited experience) in the professional world.
Biography
Hi! I'm Imri, a senior pursuing a double concentration in Computer Science-Economics and Biology. As a peer advisor, I'm eager to share insights gained from my time at Brown! Currently, I'm engaged in writing an honors thesis that investigates natural language processing and corporate finance. This past summer, I had the privilege of interning as a Summer Investment Banking Analyst at Stifel Financial in New York. If you have any questions related to course selection, navigating double concentrations, or securing internships in finance, please reach out!
Job Titles:
- Emeritus Professor
- Professor
Professor Stein was born in New York City on November 14, 1928, and educated at Brooklyn College. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1955 and Docteur Honoris Causa from the Universite de la Mediterranee, Aix-Marseille II in 1997. His entire academic career was spent at Brown, where he joined the Department of Economics in 1953. Although he formally retired as Eastman Professor of Economics in 1993 he continued scholarly work in the Division of Applied Mathematics. In a long and distinguished career, he served on editorial boards of several prestigious economics journals, published over a dozen books and authored over a hundred scholarly articles. His research made significant contributions across diverse fields including monetary and fiscal policy, economic growth, applications of stochastic optimal control to international finance and debt crises, and policies for natural hazard mitigation.
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- Member of the Steering Committee
- Grants and Financial Specialist, Bravo Center Manager
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- Briger Family Distinguished Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs, Economics Department Chair
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- Assistant Professor of Economics and Entrepreneurship, First Year and Sophomore Advisor
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- Groos Family Assistant Professor of Economics
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- Professor of Economics, Director of Undergraduate Studies
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- Senior Lecturer in Economics, Vice Director of Graduate Studies
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- Undergraduate Program Coordinator
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- Professor of Economics, First Year and Sophomore Advisor
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- Adjunct Lecturer in Economics
Kyuhey L. August - Chief Investment Officer, Founder
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- Chief Investment Officer
- Founder
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- Assistant Professor of Economics
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- Professor Emeritus of Economics / View Article
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- Orlando Bravo Assistant Professor of Economics, First Year and Sophomore Advisor
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- Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics
Michael W. Wu - Chairman, Managing Director
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- Assistant Professor
- Chairman
- Managing Director
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- Professor Emeritus of Economics
Professor Borts was the George S. and Nancy B. Parker Professor Emeritus of Economics, having retired from the University in July 2013. He received an A.B. in economics and history from Columbia University in 1947, and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1953.
He first came to the University as an Assistant Professor in 1950, when he was only twenty-two years old. He went on to have a long and distinguished career at Brown. Climbing through the ranks, he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1954, and to Professor in 1960, serving as Chair of the Department of Economics between 1964 and 1967. His 63 years of service as a faculty member is virtually unparalleled, not only at Brown, but anywhere else.
As an economist, he made contributions to the fields of transportation economics, industrial organization, and international finance. His distinguished academic career includes eleven years, between 1969 and 1980, as the Managing Editor of the American Economic Review, one of the top academic journals of the profession.
His legacy as an economist includes not only dozens of scholarly papers, but the many lives he touched as a cherished colleague, teacher, and advisor. Over more than six decades at Brown, George Borts had thousands of students, and supervised dozens of senior theses and doctoral dissertations. Until last year, he was teaching undergraduate courses on international finance and on the welfare state in America, as well as leading several independent studies on a variety of topics. In order to honor George, the Department of Economics, with the help of an anonymous donor, has endowed the George Borts Economics Dissertation Prize, to recognize the best economics doctoral dissertation written each year. At his retirement dinner hosted by the Department of Economics last September, many of his former graduate students came back to Brown to show their gratitude and affection to George and shared with all of us their great memories of his teaching and advising.
George Borts was unanimously admired by his colleagues and students, who will always remember and miss his insight, humor, and kindness.
Donations to the George Borts Dissertation Fund will be gratefully accepted. If you would like to contribute, please send a check made payable to Brown University to the following address: Department of Economics, Brown University, Box B, Providence, RI, 02912. Please indicate that it is for Borts Dissertation Fund in the check memo line.
Nancy Donohue - Chief Investment Officer, Founder
Job Titles:
- Chief Investment Officer
- Co - Founder
- Nancy Donohue and Diane Elam Assistant Professor of Economics
Biography
Hi everyone! My name is Nasim Mohammadzadeh and I'm a senior studying Business Economics with a Data Fluency certificate. In the past, I have TAed for two classes at Brown: ECON 0110 (Principles of Economics) and ECON 1090 (Introduction to Game Theory). At Brown, I am involved in the Brown Consulting Club (or BCC) as well as BRYTE. In the past, I worked at Southeastern Asset Management as an equities research analyst through the Girls Who Invest Summer Intensive Program and also as a M&A private equity analyst at Alpine Software Group. I am originally from Lexington, KY and I love to run, play tennis, bake, and read!
Job Titles:
- Nancy Donohue and Diane Elam Assistant Professor of Economics
Biography
Hi! My name is Nina and I am a senior concentrating in Economics on the Standard track and International and Public Affairs on the Development track. I am super excited to serve as a Peer Advisor this year! On campus, you can find me at the Career Center for Exploration co-managing the Peer Career Advisor program as well as at Open Language Hours at the SciLi to practice my French and Spanish. My junior spring, I studied abroad in Barcelona as part of the CASA program, which has been one of my all-time favorite experiences during college! In the Economics Department, I have taken many policy-focused courses, including Environmental Economics & Policy (ECON 1350) and Policy Questions and Quantitative Methods to Explore Them (ECON 1487 & a co-listed MPA course). For internships, I've interned at the OECD and at Guidehouse, and plan to return to Guidehouse full-time next year! Outside of work, I love thrifting and sewing clothes, running outdoors, and reading books in parks!
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- Herbert Goldberger Professor of Economics
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- Founder
- Managing Partner
- Founder of the Bravo Family Foundation
- Orlando Bravo Assistant Professor of Economics, First Year and Sophomore Advisor
Orlando Bravo is a Founder and Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo.
He spearheaded the firm's investment strategy in the software industry, leading Thoma Bravo's rise as one of the most successful private equity firms today. Orlando has overseen more than 200 acquisitions completed by Thoma Bravo, representing more than $60 billion in enterprise value.
Orlando is recognized as one of the leading private equity investors in the software and technology sectors. He was named one of "Eight Buyout Pros to Watch" by Thomson Reuters' Buyouts.
Orlando is the Founder of the Bravo Family Foundation. In May 2019, he committed $100 million to the Foundation to promote entrepreneurship and economic development in Puerto Rico. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the Bravo Family Foundation, using a $10 million gift from Orlando, provided critical aid to isolated areas along Puerto Rico's west coast, jumpstarting the Foundation's efforts in Puerto Rico. He has remained involved in many philanthropic efforts over the years, including helping to start Border Youth Tennis Exchange (BYTE), a charitable organization founded to enhance the lives of children and young adults on the U.S./Mexican border.
Orlando was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He received a JD from Stanford Law School, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a BA in Economics and Political Science from Brown University.
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- Member of the Steering Committee
- Professor of Economics
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- Chairman, Division of Applied Mathematics
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- Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Economics
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- Robert and Nancy Carney Professor of Economics, Faculty Director of the J. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship
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- Ford Foundation Professor of Economics
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- Assistant Professor of Economics
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- Eastman Professor of Political Economy
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- Steven Rattner Senior Lecturer in Economics, Vice Director of Undergraduate Studies
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- Professor of Economics, Transfer Credit Advisor
Suzi Cohen - Chief Investment Officer
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- Senior Lecturer in Economics
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- Orlando Bravo Assistant Professor of Economics, First Year and Sophomore Advisor
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- Professor of Economics, Director of Graduate Studies, Placement Director
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- Assistant Professor of Economics