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Faculty

Program Manager:

Marta Lezzerini

Program Assistant:

Michelle Santana

Full-Time Faculty


Peter Lorentzen

Academic Director
(415) 422-4744

Professor Lorentzen specializes in the economics of information, incentives, and institutions. He received his PhD in Economic Analysis and Policy from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and previously taught at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. He has published research on governance and social control in China, media management, anti-corruption, environmental transparency, long-run economic growth, qualitative research methods, the creation of...

Education:

PhD, Economic Analysis and Policy, Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Jesse Anttila-Hughes

Associate Professor
(415) 422-6453

Professor Anttila-Hughes received his PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University. His research focuses on understanding the social impacts of environmental processes, particularly those influenced by environmental degradation and climate change. Professor Anttila-Hughes' current research areas include: public health impacts of the climate; behavioral responses to new information about environmental risks; and determinants of the spread of environmental attitudes and ideas.

Education:

PhD, Sustainable Development, Columbia University

Alessandra Cassar

Professor
(415) 422-5351

Alessandra Cassar is a professor of economics at the University of San Francisco. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Economic Science Association and a former co-director of LEEPS Lab (Learning and Experimental Economics Projects of Santa Cruz) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her MA in Economics from Bocconi University, Milan, in 1996, and her PhD in International Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2001. Cassar is passionate...

Education:

PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz, Universita' di Parma (BA) and Universita' Bocconi, Milano (MA)

Suparna Chakraborty

Professor
(415) 422-4715

Dr. Chakraborty received her PhD at the University of Minnesota. Her areas of specialization include: applied macroeconomics, international macroeconomics, international finance, and development economics. Dr. Chakraborty has published research articles in the Journal of International Business Studies, Economics Letters, and the Journal of World Economic Review.

Education:

PhD, University of Minnesota

Todd Fitch

Assistant Professor

Todd is an adjunct professor in the department of Economics at the University of San Francisco and a lecturer in the Economic Analysis and Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He has worked at many Silicon Valley high-tech companies in various capacities. He has 20+ years experience in the software industry in telecommunications, medical, financial software, and analytics. His experience includes performance engineering, tools development, product development, product...

Andrew Hobbs

Assistant Professor
(801) 641-1483

Andrew Hobbs studies how droughts, floods, and other disasters affect people, and develops tools to reduce the impact of climate change on farmers. He focuses in particular on how the costs of climate shocks are distributed within households. He is currently working on combining machine learning and satellite data for faster and more accurate detection of disasters and on insurance to sustain women's businesses through droughts in Northern Kenya. Before entering academia, Andrew studied climate...

Education:

UC Davis, PhD in Agricultural & Resource Economics, 2020, University of British Columbia, MA in Economics, 2010, University of Utah, BS/BA in Economics/ International Studies, 2009

Michael Jonas

Assistant Professor
(415) 422-6160

Michael Jonas is from the University of California, Davis. His concentration area of specialization is monetary economics. He completed his doctorate degree at the University of California, Davis.

Education:

PhD, Economics, University of California, Davis, San Francisco State University, MA, Economics

Elizabeth Katz

Associate Professor
(415) 422-5413

Professor Katz is PhD from University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research areas of specialization are development economics, women in development, agricultural economics, and history of economic thought. Dr. Katz's recent research has focused on the relationship between gender, intra-household bargaining and development in Latin America.

Education:

PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Man-Lui Lau

Associate Professor
(415) 422-5555

Man-Lui Lau received his PhD from Cornell University. His areas of specialization are microeconomics, macroeconomics, options and futures, mathematical economics and the economies of East Asia. Dr. Lau has published papers on the theory of economic growth and Asian economies. His current research includes the East and Southeast Asian economies, financial development and economic growth, and the theory of Real Options and it's application.

Education:

PhD, Cornell University

Expertise:

Microeconomics , Macroeconomics, Options and futures, Mathematical economics , Economies of East Asia

Mario Muzzi

Assistant Professor
(415) 422-2765

Mario Muzzi is a graduate of USF's School of Law and has practiced law in California for over twenty years. He has an MA and a BS in economics and has been a faculty member in the economics department at USF since 1999. He teaches intermediate microeconomics, intermediate macroeconomics, international economics, and interdisciplinary courses in law and economics and behavioral (psychology) economics. Mario also teaches economics as an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Economy at...

Education:

JD University of San Francisco, MA San Francisco State University, BS Santa Clara University

Bruce Wydick

Professor
(415) 422-5863

Areas of research specialization are in the use of econometric, experimental, and game-theoretic tools to analyze the impact of development programs. Professor Wydick's recent work examines the impact of development programs such as microfinance, child sponsorship, and in-kind donation of children's shoes, wheelchairs for the disabled, and clean wood-burning stoves. Other recent work studies the role of hope and aspirations in escaping poverty traps. His academic publications have appeared in...

Education:

PhD, University of California, Berkeley

Libo Xu

Assistant Professor

Libo Xu received his PhD from the University of Calgary. His research interests are in the areas of macroeconomics, applied econometrics, and energy economics. His recent research focuses on monetary aggregation and nonlinearities in macroeconomics.

Education:

PhD, University of Calgary

Part-Time Faculty


Kyle Carlson

Adjunct Professor

Kyle is a data scientist at Stripe, a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, where he partners with product teams creating tools for startups and platform businesses. To support product launches and complex experiments, he develops statistical methods and infrastructure.  In his research career, Kyle worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's Center for Behavioral Economics, running a survey on financial literacy and subprime mortgages. At the University of...

Education:

PhD, Behavioral Economics, California Institute of Technology

Mario Carrillo

Adjunct Professor
(763) 742-6144

Javi, as he prefers to be called, is a senior data scientist at Compassion International, where he applies econometrics, machine learning, and experimental methods. He uses his skill set to understand and guide the development of poverty alleviation interventions in impoverished communities around the world. Javi is a development economist by training, who combines his international field research experiences with the knowledge gained at the Center for Health Policy at Stanford University. Javi...

Education:

MA in International and Development Economics, University of San Francisco, Coursework in Mathematics and Economics, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Hartmut Fischer

Hartmut Fischer received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Fischer has a number of areas of specialization: international trade, international finance and development economics. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and the European Union. Research interests include economic problems faced by countries in transition from socialist market economies, country risk analysis, issues of governance, the process of convergence vs. divergence between poor and rich...

Adam Gorski

Adjunct Professor

Adam Gorski is a senior data scientist at DocuSign. He specializes in predictive modeling, experimentation, and natural language processing. His education background is in economics, public policy, and data analysis.

Education:

Master of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, MA, International Developmental Economics, University of San Francisco, BA, Economics, University of San Francisco

Moonhawk Kim

Adjunct Professor
(415) 422-6515

Moonhawk Kim is the director of research practice partnerships and community engagement at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education. He is building up infrastructure for practitioners at Oakland Unified School District and researchers and staff at UC Berkeley to engage in productive collaborative partnership projects to improve educational outcomes. Prior to his current role, Moonhawk was supervisor of analytics at the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), where he used social...

Education:

Stanford University, MA, PhD, 2005, UC Berkeley, BA in Economics and Political Science, 1999

Mike Lehmann

Professor
(415) 564-4252

Prof. Lehmann obtained his PhD from Cornell University and taught at the University of San Francisco in traditional and on-line venues. He is the author of The Irwin Guide To Using The Wall Street Journal, which sold 250,000 copies in seven editions. Prof. Lehmann also developed a popular seminar, Be Your Own Economist ®, on business and investment conditions, that he offers to investors, corporations and professional groups. The San Francisco media frequently interview Prof. Lehmann on current...

Charles N'cho-Oguie

Professor

Charles N'cho-Oguie (N'cho) is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of San Francisco (USF), where he taught macroeconomics, econometrics, and development macroeconomics for nearly two decades (1986–2005). Upon early retirement, Professor N'cho devoted the majority of his time to development work, especially in Africa. He has also spent more than 20 years working as a senior international consultant for the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the United Nations...

Education:

PhD, Applied Economics, Stanford University, MS, Operational Research, Stanford University, MS, Statistics, Data Analysis and Statistical Computing, Stanford University, DEA, Economics, University of Paris IX (Dauphine)

Nihar Shah

Adjunct Professor

Nihar is an economist at Facebook, where he currently works on financial and macroeconomic questions around the cryptocurrency Libra. He has also worked on experimentation projects, particularly for Facebook's advertising and payments platforms. Nihar has previously worked as an equity derivatives trader at D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund, and has served as fellow for the Data Science for Social Good Fellowship.

Education:

Harvard University, PhD in Economics, 2018, Harvard University, AM in Economics, 2014, Harvard University, AM in Statistics, 2014, Harvard University, AB in Economics, 2011

Florent Silve

Adjunct Professor

Florent Silve is leading the data scientist and machine learning team at Sonder, a tech-driven hospitality company based in San Francisco. He built the data science and engineering team from the ground up and worked on the development of the company’s proprietary models and algorithms for real-estate valuation and dynamic pricing. Prior to his time at Sonder,  Florent was a staff scientist at Premise Data where he worked on building data and analytics products leveraging the company’s ground...

Education:

MSc, Economics, École Polytechnique, France, MSc, Public Policy, Sciences-Po Paris, France , MPhil, University of Cambridge, UK, MSc, Physics and Engineering, ESPCI ParisTech, France

Emeriti Faculty


Hartmut Fischer

Hartmut Fischer received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Fischer has a number of areas of specialization: international trade, international finance and development economics. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and the European Union. Research interests include economic problems faced by countries in transition from socialist market economies, country risk analysis, issues of governance, the process of convergence vs. divergence between poor and rich...

Mike Lehmann

Professor
(415) 564-4252

Prof. Lehmann obtained his PhD from Cornell University and taught at the University of San Francisco in traditional and on-line venues. He is the author of The Irwin Guide To Using The Wall Street Journal, which sold 250,000 copies in seven editions. Prof. Lehmann also developed a popular seminar, Be Your Own Economist ®, on business and investment conditions, that he offers to investors, corporations and professional groups. The San Francisco media frequently interview Prof. Lehmann on current...

Charles N'cho-Oguie

Professor

Charles N'cho-Oguie (N'cho) is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of San Francisco (USF), where he taught macroeconomics, econometrics, and development macroeconomics for nearly two decades (1986–2005). Upon early retirement, Professor N'cho devoted the majority of his time to development work, especially in Africa. He has also spent more than 20 years working as a senior international consultant for the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the United Nations...

Education:

PhD, Applied Economics, Stanford University, MS, Operational Research, Stanford University, MS, Statistics, Data Analysis and Statistical Computing, Stanford University, DEA, Economics, University of Paris IX (Dauphine)

John Veitch

Professor

John Veitch, Professor of Finance, and Director of the M.S. in Financial Analysis program, is an esteemed faculty member with over two decades of academic and chief administrative service to the university. Specializing in financial analysis and risk management, Dr. Veitch is the co-author of a number of articles on country risk in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa due to contributing factors of financial integration, currency devaluation and currency contagion. Professor Veitch served...

Education:

C.F.A. (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation, 1999, Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1985, Degree: B.A., Economics and Mathematics, Trinity College, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1981

Contact Info

Applied Economics MS

Marta Lezzerini, Program Manager

McLaren 103, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117-1081 (415) 422-2765