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Meet our Award Winners

Deibler Award Winners

Ryan Broll

Ryan Broll

Thesis title:
How Do Teacher Employment Outcomes and Demographics Vary Over the Business Cycle?

What are your plans post-graduation?
I’ll be spending the next two years as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), where I’ll primarily be working as a research assistant for Economics Professor Heidi Williams. After that, I hope to attend graduate school and obtain a PhD in Economics.

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Getting through Real-Analysis my sophomore year while maintaining somewhat-reasonable sleep and social schedules 🙂

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I’m really bad at following movie plots – I always have to read the wikipedia afterwards to figure out what happened!

Sherie Cheng

Sherie Cheng

Divy Dangi

Divy Dangi

What are your plans post-graduation?
I will be pursuing a Masters in Management from London Business School.

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
My proudest achievement at NU is probably winning this award!

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I am on track to becoming a recreational pilot and will get my private pilot license by the end of the year.

Haishan Gao

Haishan Gao

What are your plans post-graduation?
Work at Google

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Defeating income effect in exams

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
My slime videos have 10,000+ views

Benjamin Krieger

Benjamin Krieger

What are your plans post-graduation?
Associate position at Boston Consulting Group in Chicago.

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Participating in a fundraiser to donate more than $40,000 for mental health and suicide prevention.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I have been to sporting events at 10 Big Ten schools, all since my freshman year.

Adrian Lafont-Mueller

Adrian Lafont-Mueller

What are your plans post-graduation?
Associate Economist/Research Assistant at the Chicago Fed

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
The community I built on my floor as an RA

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I finished game of thrones in one week

William Ouyang

William Ouyang

What are your plans post-graduation?
Investment Banking Analyst at Evercore

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Founding The .WAV Company, a music club dedicated to fostering the Northwestern and Evanston music community.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I completed my degree at Northwestern as a 20 year-old, having matriculated at the age of 16.

Eisner Award Winner

Claire Petersen

Claire Petersen

Thesis title:
The Impacts of Renewable Portfolio Standards on Total and Sectoral Employment: Evidence from Pennsylvania and West Virginia

What are your plans post-graduation?
I have deferred admissions at Cambridge to work as an RA under Mar Reguant on France’s climate report

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
The fact that I tried a bit of everything (built a car, double majored, tutored, played soccer, worked as a PA, did research), and hopefully graduated as a better human being than I started

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I’m not a half bad welder

Coen Award Winners

Saeed Binmarran Aldhaheri

Saeed Binmarran Aldhaheri

Thesis title:
Environmental Regulation and the Bilateral Movement of Waste

What are your plans post-graduation?
MIT Sloan Master of Finance (MFin) program

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Never pulling an all-nighter.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I once had a baby gazelle as a roommate (abandoned by its mother) – Baby gazelle is all grown up now and successfully integrated into an existing herd.

Mahir Wagh

Mahir Wagh

Thesis title:
Racial Discrimination in Chicago’s Airbnb Market

What are your plans post-graduation?
I will be working in Chicago as an analyst at Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm.

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
I’m very thankful and proud that I got the opportunity to serve as a captain and president for NU’s club tennis team over the last 2 years. I think I was able to take advantage of my leadership position to help an already great club get a little better during my time here. We had our best competitive results in club history, but more importantly, enthusiasm for practice and our team as whole was awesome and kept improving, and I’m proud to have been a part of that and grateful I was involved in such a great community on campus.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I lived in Bermuda for 6 years, from ages 9 to 15. They were some of the best years of my life! Barely any homework, beach soccer with my friends after school everyday… sadly NU taught me life isn’t always fun and games, but I still enjoyed my time here of course!

Mahir also received Department Honors AND completed the Economics BA/MA

Ashley Wei

Ashley Wei

Thesis title:
How Do Online Reviews Impact Restaurants’ Success?: a Regression Discontinuity Design study using Yelp Ratings

What are your plans post-graduation?
Trading

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
successfully graduating

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I love boba tea

Honors Recipients

Saeed Binmarran Aldhaheri

Saeed Binmarran Aldhaheri

Thesis title:
Environmental Regulation and the Bilateral Movement of Waste

What are your plans post-graduation?
MIT Sloan Master of Finance (MFin) program

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Never pulling an all-nighter.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I once had a baby gazelle as a roommate (abandoned by its mother) – Baby gazelle is all grown up now and successfully integrated into an existing herd.

Ryan Broll

Ryan Broll

Thesis title:
How Do Teacher Employment Outcomes and Demographics Vary Over the Business Cycle?

What are your plans post-graduation?
I’ll be spending the next two years as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), where I’ll primarily be working as a research assistant for Economics Professor Heidi Williams. After that, I hope to attend graduate school and obtain a PhD in Economics.

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Getting through Real-Analysis my sophomore year while maintaining somewhat-reasonable sleep and social schedules 🙂

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I’m really bad at following movie plots – I always have to read the wikipedia afterwards to figure out what happened!

John Brugger

John Brugger

Thesis title:
Does Money Matter? – Examining the Relationship Between Finance and Economic Growth Using A Panel Approach

What are your plans post-graduation?
I will be working at Capital One

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Creating a network of life long friends

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I love to play golf!

Amy Chen

Amy Chen

Thesis title:
The Impact of Political Protests on Planned Consumer Demand for Travel: A Multi-country Panel Data Regression Analysis Using Transaction Data from the Expedia Group

What are your plans post-graduation?
Machine Learning Engineer at Quora

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
I had the opportunity to work with Main Dempster Mile, an Evanston non-profit organization, through CampusCatalyst and apply my data analysis skills to help attract more Northwestern students to the small businesses in that area. This allowed the business owners who were living paycheck to paycheck to increase their revenues and continue running their stores.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I have never lost a game of Wii Tennis before

Kenneth Fu

Kenneth Fu

Thesis title:
A Hypothesis Test for Monotonicity Under Nonparametric Instrumental Variable Estimation

What are your plans post-graduation?
Econ PhD

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Learning to learn

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I cut my own hair. Probably at my own expense…

Jason Liu

Jason Liu

Thesis title:
A Geospatial Analysis of the Form and Migration of Crime: Hotspots in Los Angeles

What are your plans post-graduation?
I’ll be working as an economic consultant at Bates White in D.C

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Honestly, probably graduating! I took some hard, albeit fun, classes and struggled and learned and being on the other side feels good. It was a good run and I enjoyed myself through it all!

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I ran the Philadelphia Marathon when I was 17!

Tianyu Luo

Tianyu Luo

Thesis title:
Effect of Temperature on Industrial Productivity

Claire Petersen

Claire Petersen

Thesis title:
The Impacts of Renewable Portfolio Standards on Total and Sectoral Employment: Evidence from Pennsylvania and West Virginia

What are your plans post-graduation?
I have deferred admissions at Cambridge to work as an RA under Mar Reguant on France’s climate report

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
The fact that I tried a bit of everything (built a car, double majored, tutored, played soccer, worked as a PA, did research), and hopefully graduated as a better human being than I started

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I’m not a half bad welder

Jessica Serody

Jessica Serody

Thesis title:
The Impact of State Family Leave Policies on Fertility Decisions

What are your plans post-graduation?
Hopefully get a job doing economics or policy research with plans to eventually earn a PhD in economics

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Completing my thesis!

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I played Division III field hockey for two years before transferring to NU.

Mahir Wagh

Mahir Wagh

Thesis title:
Racial Discrimination in Chicago’s Airbnb Market

What are your plans post-graduation?
I will be working in Chicago as an analyst at Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm.

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
I’m very thankful and proud that I got the opportunity to serve as a captain and president for NU’s club tennis team over the last 2 years. I think I was able to take advantage of my leadership position to help an already great club get a little better during my time here. We had our best competitive results in club history, but more importantly, enthusiasm for practice and our team as whole was awesome and kept improving, and I’m proud to have been a part of that and grateful I was involved in such a great community on campus.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I lived in Bermuda for 6 years, from ages 9 to 15. They were some of the best years of my life! Barely any homework, beach soccer with my friends after school everyday… sadly NU taught me life isn’t always fun and games, but I still enjoyed my time here of course!

Mahir also completed the Economics BA/MA

Amy Wang

Amy Wang

Thesis title:
Myths of STEM Major Shortage: How Does Secondary Education Impact Students’ Choice of Graduating Majors?

What are your plans post-graduation?
Investment Research Analyst at a hedge fund in Downtown Chicago

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Ran a half marathon with my NU friends!

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I was once an Applied math major but changed my mind after my first math class

Ashley Wei

Ashley Wei

Thesis title:
How Do Online Reviews Impact Restaurants’ Success?: a Regression Discontinuity Design study using Yelp Ratings

What are your plans post-graduation?
Trading

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
successfully graduating

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I love boba tea

Tim Zhang

Tim Zhang

Thesis title:
Congressional Representation and Federal Funding — Evidence from Unexpected Departures of US House Members

What are your plans post-graduation?
PhD Program in Economics, Princeton University

What is your proudest achievement at NU?
Took PhD first year micro plus macro and survived.

What is an interesting fact about yourself?
During my freshman year I vowed not to major in econ just to ‘be different’. Then I found Econ experiences could be so all-rounded, individual and fascinating.

James Zhao

James Zhao

Thesis title:
The Impact of Political Protests on Consumer Demand for Travel: A Multi-Country Panel Data Regression Analysis Using Transaction Data from The Expedia Group