Alumni Bios

Brian Baisa

Assistant Professor, Amherst College

Brian Baisa is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Amherst College. He received a PhD in Economics from Yale University in 2013 and a BS in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 2008. While at Michigan, Brian took his first economics class with Janet Gerson. He later wrote his honors thesis with Steve Salant. Brian's current research studies microeconomic theory and auction design.

Dominick Bartelme

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Economics

Dominick Bartelme is a Ph.D candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and has accepted a position as assistant professor of economics at Michigan starting in Fall 2015. His research interests are in economic geography, development and international trade. He was an undergraduate in the economics department at Michigan, where Jan Gerson was his concentration advisor and Steve Salant was his honors thesis advisor.

Timothy McQuade

Assistant Professor of Finance, Stanford GSB

Timothy McQuade is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He received a PhD degree in Economics from Harvard University in May 2013 and joined the GSB in August 2013. Prior to attending Harvard, Professor McQuade worked at UBS Investment Bank and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Michigan. His research interests include asset pricing and real estate economics.

Yeşim Orhun

Assistant Professor, Ross School of Business

Yeşim Orhun holds a PhD in Business Administration from University of California, Berkeley and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Her research interests span and combine two main areas: empirical industrial organization and experimental economics. Her experimental research focuses on the formation of beliefs and their impact on choice and strategic behavior. Her empirical research explores firms’ non-price strategies such as quality, product assortment and location choice in a competitive environment.

Louis Preonas

Ph.D. Agricultural and Resource Econ Candidate, UC Berkeley

Louis Preonas's primary research interest is energy and environmental economics, with focuses on energy in the developing world, domestic climate policy, and firm response to environmental regulation. He is pursuing his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics at University of California, Berkeley. He has previously held economic research positions at Resources for the Future (Washington, DC) and Environment for Development-CATIE (Turrialba, Costa Rica).

Allison Davido

JD Candidate, Yale Law School 2015

Allison Davido is a third-year law student at Yale Law School. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and highest honors with distinction in economics from the University of Michigan in 2009. Prior to law school, she worked for three years in economic consulting, specializing in securities litigation. At Yale, Allison is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law and Policy Review and has interned for the chief judge of the District of Connecticut and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Haven. Her undergraduate thesis on the economic implications of the legalization of abortion won the Gerald Ford Public Policy Award for excellence in political science and promise in public service. In her two summers in law school, she has worked for the Honorable Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York and in the antitrust practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City, where she will return after graduation.

Astrid Dick

Visual Artist

Astrid Dick is a visual artist working in painting, drawing, and engraving, as well as sculpture and video. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, she currently lives in Paris. Her trajectory as an artist is rather atypical. At age 18, excited by mathematics and social frictions, she began her studies in economics, while continuing to draw in her free time. In 2002, she was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, and in 1995 a bachelors in economics from the University of Michigan. Having led a double-life between art and economic research for many years, at age 36 she abandoned her post as university professor and her career as international economist to devote herself entirely to art. Recently, she is artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, and at the Spinnerei in Leipzig, and her work shown at the Manoir de la Ville de Martigny in Switzerland and at Château du Val Fleury in Gif-sur-Ivette.

Jackie Klein

M.B.A. Candidate, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Jackie is currently getting her MBA full-time at Chicago Booth. Prior to business school, she was an analyst at Cornerstone Research, an economic consulting firm in San Francisco, where she supported expert witnesses in antitrust, IP and financial litigation. Last summer, she interned as a senior product manager at Amazon on the Global Selling team, building products to help Amazon sellers expand internationally. After graduation, she will be returning to Amazon on the Community Experience team.

Frederick Link

Chief Risk Officer, EFG International

Frederick Link served as Group General Counsel of EFG International from March 2006 until 31 December 2010. He was appointed as Chief Risk Officer in July 2009 and continues in that role. Since April 2013 he is also CRO of EFG International’s wholly owned subsidiary EFG Bank AG, Zurich. As Chief Risk Officecr he is responsible for risk assessment, management and controlling throughout the EFG International Group, including credit, market liquidity and operational risks. Prior to joining EFG International, Mr. Link was with Allen & Overy LLP in London, where he represented financial institutions and corporate clients in relation to equity and debt capital markets offerings, mergers & acquisitions and in the regulatory and legal aspects of financial derivatives and other complex financial products. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an A.B. in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Spencer Smith

M.Phil Econ Student, University of Oxford

Spencer is a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, where he reads for an MPhil in Economics. His research interests include labor economics and public economics. Before graduate study at Oxford, Spencer worked for the President's Council of Economic Advisers at the White House, where he contributed to the Council's work on public finance and natural resource economics. Before that, he worked as a research assistant in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Spencer earned a B.S. with highest distinction from the University of Michigan with concentrations in economics (highest honors) and mathematics. As an undergraduate, he interned for the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Ana-Maria Wheatcroft

Talent & Culture Specialist, PDT Partners

Ana-Maria Wheatcroft works on the Talent & Culture Team at PDT Partners, a global investment manager that develops and deploys quantitative, model-driven trading strategies. PDT stands for “Process Driven Trading,” referring to the automated nature of their trading. Ana’s past experience as a systems programmer and tech manager at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank provide a good foundation for recognizing and fostering talented technologists, researchers and analysts. She loves that her job leverages both her people and tech skills - her first task at PDT was to build a recruiting database and to streamline and automate various HR processes.

Wenji Xu

Ph.D. Econ Student, University of Chicago

Wenji is a Ph.D. student at University of Chicago Department of Economics. His research interests include industrial organization, political economy, and applied microeconomics. Prior to UChicago, Wenji earned BSc in Applied Mathematics from the National University of Singapore, where he developed his honor thesis on Adaptive Submodular Optimization. Wenji was an exchange student at University of Michigan in 2012.