Economics students, faculty honored at RISE ceremony

Faculty and graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Economics were honored for outstanding achievements at the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics’ (RISE) fourth annual awards ceremony April 23.

George Zodrow presented outgoing Social Sciences dean and men’s and women’s club water polo coach Antonio Merlo with a water polo ball and a Rice Economics baseball cap in appreciation of his efforts. The ball was signed by all members of the department and included a flag with the number 12, indicating the department’s national ranking according to College Factual. Submitted photo.

Criteria for student honors varied by award and included grade point average in economics courses or other measures of academic achievement. The two faculty awards were based on student teaching evaluations and research performance.

Faculty Awards

Malcolm Gillis Award for Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching in Economics
Maria Bejan

Ralph O’Connor Award for Distinction in Teaching and Research in Economics
Robin Sickles

Undergraduate Awards

Honors in Economics
Jiyang Cai
Meghana Gaur
Alex John
Andrew Porisch
Ruochen Zhang

Malcolm Gillis Award in Economics
Mai Pham

Malcolm Gillis Award in Mathematical Economic Analysis
Yan Li

Michael D. Maher RISE Award in Economics
Su Chen Teh

RISE Award in Mathematical Economic Analysis
Kaiqi Bao and Yixing Ling

Tax Executives Institute Undergraduate Tax Scholar Award
Meghana Gaur

Ronald Soligo Public Policy Essay Prize
Jiyang Cai

Peter Mieszkowski Prize for Honors Program Research
Andrew Porisch

Gaston Rimlinger Prize
Meghana Gaur

MEECON Award for Scholarly Excellence
Gedam Harshvardhan

Byron Pope Award for Outstanding Performance in Masters of Energy Economics
Alejandro Degwitz

Doctoral Awards

Maria Esther and Carlos Linares Award for Best Performance in Economics First-Year Courses
Mingzi Niu and Binyu Zhao

Robin C. Sickles Award for Best Performance in Econometrics Qualifying Exam
Qinyou Hu

Rica and Tony Ligeralde Award for Best Performance in Economic Theory Qualifying Exam
Robert Idel

Dagobert L. Brito Award for Best Performance by a Recitation Instructor in Economics
Shasha Liu and Ajinkya Keskar

John R. Kelly Graduate Student Teaching Prize in Economics
Mehreen Gul

Tax Executives Institute Graduate Tax Scholar Award
Dario Biolcati-Rinaldi

George R. Zodrow Award for Best Performance in a Workshop
Amir Kazempour and Yakym Pirozhenko

Timothy and Katharine Gunning Award for Best Third-Year Economics Paper
Kirill Evdokimov

Jennifer and Purvez Captain Award for Outstanding Economics Dissertation
Paul Barton

To conclude the program, incoming Economics chair George Zodrow presented outgoing Social Sciences dean and men’s and women’s club water polo coach Antonio Merlo with a water polo ball and a Rice Economics baseball cap in appreciation of his efforts. The ball was signed by all members of the department and included a flag with the number 12, indicating the department’s national ranking according to College Factual.

For more information on RISE, visit https://economics.rice.edu/rise.