Senior Economics Winners Announced

Senior prize winners (l to r): Hemanth Asirvatham, Aden Barton, Sara Moore, Jay Garg

     Graduating Economics concentrators were recognized throughout the University.

     Jay Garg was awarded the Seymour E. and Ruth B. Harris Prize for his thesis, “Opium, Poppy Eradication, and State Collapse in China,” advised by Professor Melissa Dell.

     Hemanth Asirvatham received the Allyn A. Young Prize for his thesis, “The Dynamo Is Not the Computer: A Historical Exploration of What Makes Tech Adoption Faster,” advised by Professor Andrei Shleifer.

     Sara Moore was awarded the Morris Kronfeld Prize for demonstrating exceptional academic growth during her college years, and for excellence in her thesis, “‘a river of grief’: The Mortality Effects of Water Restoration on Native American Reservations,” advised by Dr. Gregory Bruich.

     Aden Barton received the John H. Williams Prize, awarded to the honors senior graduating with the best overall record in economics. Additionally, Barton won the Harvard Kennedy School’s John T. Dunlop Thesis Prize in Business and Government for his thesis, “The Causal Effect of Welfare Retrenchment: Evidence from Medicaid and SNAP,” advised by Dr. Gregory Bruich. This is awarded to the graduating senior with the best thesis on a challenging public policy issue at the interface of business and government.

     Hemanth Asirvatham, Aden Barton, Jack Fetsch, Jay Garg, Nicholas Hutchison, Pomaikaʻi Ogata, and Shai-Li Ron were the seven economics thesis writers who received the 2024 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, for excellent undergraduate work.