Graduate News

It has been a productive year in our graduate program. Several students published their research in peer-reviewed journals. Congrats to Sparshi Srivastava and Rajib Rahman on this fantastic accomplishment. Dhiroj Koirala was recognized for his research accomplishments with the Carolyn Harper Award, while Mehak Kaushik and Prashik Gajbhiye earned the Vijay Bhagavan Teaching Award for their teaching contributions. In PhD admissions, we had one of the largest application pools that we have seen in recent years, and we are looking forward to welcoming a new cohort of students in the Fall. Our program continues to grow in visibility, which is credit to the many efforts from our faculty, staff, and students to make this program great.

Looking ahead, we will have 10 students on the job market next academic year. Stay tuned for announcements!

- Nathan Chan

This coming year will be exceptionally busy with 10 new job market candidates. These students are working hard on getting prepared for the job market. Stay tuned to learn ways to help either in the form of attending a practice presentation or a mock interview. 

PhD student, Dhiroj Koirala was a 2023-2024 Instructional Innovation Fellow, which is part of the Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support (IDEAS). Koirala used Microsoft Excel as a tool to gamify economic concepts to enhance engagement. By doing so, Koirala represented an innovated approach to making economics accessible and engaging. 

Why this tool?

•  The tool is accessible to all students
•  It helps break down a complex concept
•  It promotes real-time learning
•  It makes economics easy to understand

What did students think about this activity?

Students enjoyed the active learning and seeing real-time implications of their decisions, enhancing their learning experience and preparing them for real-world applications. Students say that this has made economics more enjoyable.

Vijay Bhagavan was a graduate student in the Department of Resource Economics from 1992 to 1994 and an undergraduate at UMass before that. He was an outstanding student whose Master's thesis was published as “Concentration Change and Countervailing Power in the U.S. Food Manufacturing Industries” in 1996 by the Review of Industrial Organization. He was known for his generosity, his late nights at the office, and his unflagging good humor.

Vijay is remembered by faculty, his graduate student colleagues, and his undergraduate students for his effervescence and optimism. Times may have been hard, but never so difficult as to stifle his spontaneous roar of laughter or a comment of “No Problem”. After all, despite the petty tribulations of the day, life is good, isn’t it? Vijay traveled the hallways making everyone in his path feel better, providing a sense of perspective and a love of life.

These attributes made him the model Teaching Assistant. Vijay was equally passionate in his love for humanity in general, the New England Patriots, and virtually any individual he came in contact with. Imagine how fortunate the undergraduate, perhaps far from home for the first time, perhaps with troubles of her or his own to deal with, to have Vijay as a teacher. Vijay struggled early as an undergraduate, persevered, and became a model of strength as his confidence matured. He related to his students as individuals, could recognize the special problems they were sometimes having, and would help them both academically and spiritually.

Vijay was the greatest, and so are the Teaching Assistants of Distinction named in his memory. This award is endowed through the generosity of Vijay's parents, Anuradha and V.S. (Manny) Bhagavan, in memory of their beloved son. 

We would like to congratulate the 2023 winners: Prashik Gajbhiye and Mehak Kaushik

The Carolyn Harper Fund and Fellowship is an active scholarly awards program, administered by the Chair of the Department of Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was established in 1993 following the death of Professor Carolyn Harper, who as a student and teacher had been affiliated with the department for more than a decade.

Each year the Department of Resource Economics has honored one or two graduate students who best exemplify the qualities that Carolyn Harper had in such abundance: scholarly achievement, concern for social and environmental issues, and racial and gender justice. This is done in the Department's conference room, under the watchful eye of Carolyn's photograph that hangs there, and attended by all faculty and graduate students. It is a special time for us to remember Carolyn collectively, as we do throughout the year individually.

We would like to congratulate the 2023 winner: Dhiroj Koirala