Alumni Notes | Wisconsin Alumni Association | Taylor-Hibbard Club History

Michael Aliber (PhD '00) writes, "our daughter, Talia Zara Aliber, was born on 21-12-02.  Hiltrud and I are delighted to welcome her into our lives. I was in Uganda in September 2001 and saw John Okidi (PhD '97) wearing a tie, which was a bit disorienting, but otherwise really nice.  Unfortunately, I recently got weak-kneed and applied for a job, and now am hopelessly mired once again in a large South African bureaucracy. "

Kate Arnold (MS '05) took a position at Middleton High School teaching US history and environmental studies in 2010.  She also donated her old Volvo to Alan Turnquist (MS 2007), who, with his wife Erin, is pedaling a tandem bicycle from the Artic Circle to Tierra del Fuego.  The Volvo took them from Madison to the Northwest Territories, where it was donated to a school.  See more about Alan’s adventures at:  http://www.2totango.net/.

Ken Baerenklau (PhD '01), Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences at UC, Riverside, has been appointed Associate Dean in the Graduate Division iin October 2008.  Ken's primary responsibilities will be for enrolled students and as support for the Graduate Council.

The BASIS project’s partner in Kenya, the International Livestock Research Institute, produced a video on a new insurance program for pastoralist herders in Kenya.  AAE alumni Chris Barrett (PhD ’94), John McPeak (PhD ’99) and Nobu Ikegami (PhD ’08) are collaborating with BASIS director Michael Carter to insure dryland herders against livestock loss due to drought.

Congratulations to Chris Barrett (PhD '94) for being named a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in 2010.

Katie Behnke (MS '10) is working in Shawano County as an Extension agent. 

Andrea Bentancor (PhD '07) is teaching as a lecturer at the Universidad Aldolfo Ibañez in Santiago, Chile, at the same time she is doing some consulting and research with Julio Berdegue on rural poverty.  She writes, "Give my greetings to everybody there.  It was a great experience to study at the AAE. I have not been able yet to meet such good friends as in Madison."

Steve Boucher (PhD '00) was granted tenure at the University of California, Davis in April 2008.

Natalia Caldes (MS '01) gave birth to Gabriela Perez Caldes on June 20, 2008.  She writes, "a s you can imagine, Rafa and I are really, really happy (and a bit tired too!). She is really sweet!!!"

Congratulations to Julie Caswell (PhD '84) for being named a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in 2011.

Michael Cook (PhD '76) will be inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame in May 2012. He is the Robert D. Partridge Professor in Cooperative Leadership and Executive Director of the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership, University of Missouri-Columbia.  In making the award, the Cooperative Development Foundation wrote that Prof. Cook's work has "provided a generation of cooperative leaders with the tools to be more effective managers of cooperative business enterprises.  In addition to his vast credentials in the domestic cooperative arena, he has done extensive international cooperative development work." 

Hooman Dabidian (MA '02) was married in Toronto in summer 2010.  Hooman has been working at the World Bank since 2003.

Jeff Dorsey (PhD '84) writes, " I've been busy doing a variety of international consulting jobs, just finishing one in Ethiopia and now doing another there. I set up a company called Agriculture, Business, Credit and Development LLC to continue doing the same kind of work, and am starting to do a few project through the company."

Joshua Duke (PhD '98) received the Distinguished Member Award in October 2010 from the Northeastern Ag and Resource Economics Association, for “continuous and outstanding contributions to the Association, the region, and the profession.”  Josh holds appointments in food and resource economics, legal studies, and economics at the University of Delaware.

Luisa Ferreira (PhD '92) writes, "after 7 years at the World Bank in Washington DC as a senior human resources economist dealing with education and poverty in East Africa and Latin America, we decided to take a sabbatical in Europe, myself at the European Investment Bank and Pedro at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. The family has doubled with the arrival of Miguel in January 2000, to play with Tomaz, now 3 years old. Life is hectic but lots of fun. My email address is luisa_ferreira@yahoo.com Look forward to hearing from you."

Diana Fletschner (PhD '02) took a new position with the Rural Development Institute as their Senior Land Tenure and Gender Expert.  RDI, based in Seattle, has as its mission to secure land rights for the world’s poorest as a way to provide economic opportunities and promote social change. She writes, "I will be charged with helping shape RDI’s new Global Center for Women’s Land Rights as it becomes a reference for policy makers, lawyers, researchers, and the development community around the world."

Jeremy Foltz’s (PhD '98) presentation at last spring’s UW Food Summit is now available on a Wisconsin Public Television video.  He describes his work on agricultural technology innovation in Mali and food security in West Africa.

Francisco Galarza (PhD '09) accepted a position at the Universidad del Pacifico in Lima.

David Garber (PhD '09) took a new position with USAID, following a stint with the EPA climate division. 

Vanity Gee (MA '10) is off to Harvard iin fall 2011 to continue her studies in education policy.

Seth Gitter (PhD '06) and his wife Marie Mapes announced the birth of their daughter, Sylvia on 11/18/09. He writes, " Sylvia weighed in at 6lbs 2oz and is just under 20 inches long. We chose the name Sylvia in honor of Marie's maternal Great Aunt Sylvia Eagles. We hope our Sylvia will be an independent thinker with a generous spirit like her namesake. Corvette racing is optional..."

Robert Hanson (MS '96) writes, "Greetings from Dakar, Senegal, where I am currently working as Regional Agriculture Attaché for the Foreign Ag Service of USDA."

Nobu Ikegami (PhD '08) writes from Nairobi, where he works at the International Livestock Research Institute:  “We are piloting index-based livestock insurance as a policy against drought in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia and are working to expand the insurance a larger area of Northern Kenya.”

David Kaimowitz (PhD '86) is now Director of Natural Assets and Sustainability for the Ford Foundation.  He spoke on "The Crisis in Globalization and the Development Challenge" at the AAE Centennial in September 2009.

Kwansoo Kim (PhD '98) spent his 2010-11 sabbatical from Seoul National University with his family in Madison, working with AAE faculty Brad Barham, Jean-Paul Chavas, and Jeremy Foltz.  They are examining the productivity and risk outcomes associated with specialization and diversification in agricultural production, with applications to Korean rice farms.  In the next phase, they will look at US integrated livestock-grain farms. For the US phase, they will collaborate with Jeremy Weber (Ph.D. 2010) who is currently working at the US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.

 

 

Anna Knox (MA '98) married Carlos Caula Encinosa (hailing from Havana) on October 19, 2001. Reyes Aterido (MS '00) attended the reception, as did Kristin Mahrt (MA '98) and her husband Martin Shields (PhD '98), so there was good UW-AAE representation. Anna continues in her position at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Christa Lachenmayr (MS '07) took a new job with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, leaving her position with Nathan and Associates in July 2008. 

Ben Linkow (PhD  '08) left Miami University, Ohio, for a position at USAID in 2010.

Winnie Luseno (MS '96) spotted Michael Carter in an airport in June 2008, and later writes, "I applied for admission to the University of North Carolina School of Public Health's Maternal and Child Health Doctoral Program. I am happy to report that soon after my return from Kenya I heard that I was admitted. I am very excited and believe this is a great opportunity for me.  Many of the skills I learnt as an Agricultural and Applied Economics graduate student and my experience working with ILRI and Tegemeo/Egerton University have been invaluable in my public health work.  I am therefore hoping I can minor in Health Policy or Health Economics."

John McPeak (PhD '99) took a tenure-track position at Syracuse University in 2002, and he and his wife Margaret have a beautiful baby girl, Kathleen Herkento McPeak, born April 18, 2002.  Photos of this child were viewed in Taylor Hall, along with pictures of John and Margaret's elaborate wedding ceremonies in Kenya, when John lectured in fall 2003 on his research for the AAE Development Workshop.

Francisco Meneses (MA '06), currrently working for the Chilean Education Ministry, was chosen as one of Chile's Top 100 Young Leaders by the principal newspaper, El Mercurio.

Tewodaj Mogues (PhD '05) won an Honorable Mention from the AAEA for her dissertation The Accumulation of Social Capital:  Implications for the Dynamics of Inequality and the Management of Shocks written under the supervision of Michael Carter.  Congratulations, Tewodaj!

Sanjukta Mukherjee (MS '98) has relocated back to Hong Kong after working for the International Finance Corporation in Moscow for several years. She iis happy to be back in Asia.

Dan Mullarky (PhD '97) took a position as a Natural Resources Specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service of USDA and is residing in Vienna, Virginia.

Angel Nickolov (MA '01) will begin a Ph.D. program in Biostatistics at the University of Missouri-Columbia in January 2010.

John Okidi (PhD '97) moved to the Think Tank Initiative and is now based in Nairobi at the International Development Research Centre.

Kurt Paulsen (MA '99) has returned to Madison to take a faculty position in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

Tingjun Peng (PhD '06) announces the birth of his baby boy in September 2007. He has been promoted to Associate Professor within the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, and he and his wife bought a house in Beijing llast year.

Victoria Rames (MS '01) writes, "I partcipated in the SANREM meeting with Ian Coxhead and Doug Southgate.  Actually I traveled to the SANREM Ecuador debriefing in January of 2004 and gave a
presentation on social capital and livelihoods in Cotacachi, Ecuador."

Sonya Ravindranath (MS '06) is enjoying life in Richmond, Virginia.  "Everything is going really well. I have been at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond for about 18 months or so. I am working in the Regional Unit, which is interesting (it means I work on economic conditions in Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia). It is crazy to me that I got back into macroeconomics for the first time since undergrad and started working at a Federal Reserve Bank two months before Bear Stearns collapsed. Talk about timing!"

Kari Rojas (MA '01) writes "Yerko and I were blessed on February 24, 2003 with our son Nicholas. We are living in Buenos Aires, where I am the Agricultural Attache at the American Embassy.  This is a very busy post. In addition to covering Argentina, the third largest soybean producer in the world, I also cover Uruguay and Paraguay.  My main responsibility here is commodity analyses, but each day brings its own surprises. In the morning I could be briefing the Ambassador on Argentine/US trade issues, and in the evening attending a Tango show with US Congressmen.  It is exciting! I will be here until December 2007; should anyone come down this way, please look me up!"

 

Agnes Rola (PhD '85) was named Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of the Philippines Los Banos.

Rachel Sabates-Wheeler (PhD Development '01) and Ricardo Sabates (PhD Development '02) announce the birth of  baby Asher on October 25, 2007, in Brighton, England.  Rachel is teaching and researching atthe Institute of Development Studies in Brighton, and Ricardo is working at the Center for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning at the Institute of Education in London. Asher and his four-year-old brother Oliver both celebrate their birthdays in October. Ricardo took a new position as Senior Lecturer in International Education and Development at the University of Sussex in fall 2008.

Martin Shields (PhD '98) writes, "In 2005 our family grew again with the addition of our third daughter, Serena Xiu Jin Shields. Serena was born in Xiu Shan, China, and we will celebrate her 4th birthday in August.   In other news, I left Penn State in August 2006 after 8 years for a position at Colorado State's Economics Department. At CSU my research and outreach programs focus on economic growth in northern Colorado."

Yasuharu Shimamura (PhD '09) visited Madison last winter to continue some collaborative work with colleagues.  He teaches at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan and recently published “Credit Program Participation and Child Schooling in Rural Malawi,” with Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel. World Development 38(4): 567-580; and “Living Arrangements and Schooling of Orphaned Children and Adolescents in Uganda,” with T. Yamano, and D. Sserunkuuma.  Economic Development and Cultural Change 54(4): 833-856.

Widad Soufi (PhD '10) was promoted to the tenure track at Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco.  She writes, “I now understand Professor Barham when one day in his office he told me how busy the life of a professor is.”

Denise Stanley (PhD '96) announced the birth of Nicolas Jose Salgado Stanley on Thanksgiving, November 21, 2001, "weighing in at a whooping 9 lbs., 3 ozs." Denise is currently on the faculty of the Economics Department at Cal State Fullerton.

Deborah Streeter (PhD '84) wrote recently to department chair Rich Bishop, "I've been on the faculty at Cornell for about 17 years (thanks to a chance lead from Gerry Campbell I got some industry experience first).  I have just been promoted to full professor here and thought I would let the department know.  I know you are now chairman at UW and I thought you might like to share the news with others who may remember me from that era. Hope all is well with the department.  Thanks for launching me!"

Reefat Sultana (MA ' 02) writes, "I teach at a private university opened by BRAC-Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee...it's a pretty large NGO here, and they opened the university two years ago. I teach the introductory macroeconomics and intermediate microeconomics classes there. It's going ok so far, and I must say that you have to have a lot of patience to be a teacher!"

Yoshito Takasaki (PhD '00) won Honorable Mention from the AAEA for his dissertation, "The Microdynamics of Conservation and Development in Tropical Forests," in August 2001. He is currently at work publishing chapters of his dissertation and teaching at the Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Yoshito also reports that he and his wife Izumi are the proud parents of a new baby daughter, Haru, who was born on January 12.

Shinichi Taya (MS '06) writes, "I will be sent from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Foresty and Fisheries to OECD in Paris this July (2009). This is a sort of 'leave.' I will work for OECD for two or three years there and be back again to MAFF in Japan. I will be assigned to the directorate in charge of agricultural economics.  I will join the team in charge of mid-term outlook of the world agricultural market, that is, forecasts of prices, productions, trade volumes, etc, by using a huge model named AGLINK. The model consists of thousands of supply and demand log linear equations. Part by part, it is rather simple and basic, but extricating and putting them together consistently would be a very loaded job."

Tsung-Hsiu Tsai (PhD '98) writes, "work is a bit overwhelming, but other things are just fine.  Did I tell you I am also the dean of student extracurricular activities? I do admissions, teach three new courses and do research.  I just bought a four bedroom apartment facing a lake and a park, which makes me think of Madison."

Shinn-Shyr Wang (PhD '04) won the prize for Outstanding Dissertation awarded by the AAEA for his work, "Strategic Behavior under Asset Value Maximization:  An Empirical Assessment of the U.S. Retail Margarine and Butter Markets."  Kyle Stiegert supervised the research. 

Jeremy Weber (PhD '10) took a job with the USDA Economic Research Service, joining the ranks of many alumni in Washington, D.C.  Among other things, he is currently working on natural gas development in Pennsylvania.  His dissertation, Three Essays in World Development Initiatives, was chosen for the HC Taylor award.

Yang Yao (PhD '96) was mentioned in a New Yorker magazine article about World Bank head, Justin Lin (Boom Doctor:  Can the Chinese miracle continue without reform?, October 11, 2010, by Evan Osnos).  Yang’s February 2010 Foreign Affairs article arguing for more political openness was cited.  Yang heads the China Center for Economic Research, the think tank Lin founded in 1994 and is a visiting professor in the UW Business School in fall 2011.

Lucy Yeung (MS '02) writes, "my new workplace is one of the top business and economics schools in Brazil (Ibmec, Sao Paulo).  It's a new school that has hired several professors from the university and many other young professionals with international degrees.  I'm teaching microeconomics, but in fact, my main duty here is to work as the assistant to the undergraduate coordinator.  I "take care" of all the 600 students and 75 professors/instructors in the school, not to mention about trying to improve the ranking of our programs.  It's been fun...  Just found out that I love teaching."