Alumni Notes
Sylvia Allegretto (PhD ’03) spent four years at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. In 2007 she joined the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, where currently she is the deputy chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics.

Cecilia Barsk (BA with honors ’03) moved to New York after graduation and worked with anti-money laundering legislation at two of the major international investment banks. In 2007 she decided to explore new territory and moved to London to pursue a master’s degree. Before starting her degree program she spent a few exciting months in Argentina studying Spanish. Currently she is enjoying her master’s studies in environmental policy at the London School of Economics.

Devi Bedari (PhD ’92) has been an economics faculty member at two universities in Southern Africa, the University of Botswana in Gaborone and the University of Namibia in Windhoek. He has now assumed a faculty position at the T.A. Pai Management Institute in Manipal, Karnataka, India.

Drew Chafetz (BA ’06) is a co founder of love.fútbol which is an organization that develops simple, safe soccer fields for children in impoverished communities worldwide. The organization partners with local communities and utilizes community driven development. There are three projects in Guatemala with hope for more in the future. For more information visit www.lovefutbol.org.

Mahmoud El-Fakery (PhD ’78) has led a very successful career as a professor and university administrator in his home country of Libya. Most notably he served as president of Garyounis University in Benghazi for seven years, as president of Derna University for four years, and most recently as president of Altahad University for the past two years.

Taher El-Jehaimi (PhD ’75) returned to Libya after earning his PhD where he has held a variety of important government positions. He has been the director of the Central Bank of Libya and the economics minister, and is currently the minister of planning and investment. In this current position Dr. El-Jehaimi is guiding policies of privatization and increased openness to the global economy.

Amanda Gessert (BA ’06) is working at BBC Research & Consulting in Denver, Colorado, www.bbcresearch.com.

Kristin Johnson (BA with honors ’05) took a job at a financial planning firm in Denver after graduation while continuing to read and study economic development papers and books in her spare time. This led to her decision to pursue her economics studies in graduate school, choosing the PhD program at Duke University. She moved to Durham, North Carolina, in July 2007 and successfully completed her first year courses. She is excited to get past the basics and study more health and development in the upcoming year.

Danielle Kaeble (BA ’07) accepted a position with the Retail Indicators Branch at the United States Census Bureau in Washington, D.C., after graduation. The branch creates the retail indicator that is released each month for the use of retailers, investors, and policy makers. She loves the excitement of the new city and the new job, and has started a master’s program in applied economics at The Johns Hopkins University.

Alexander Logeman (BA with honors ’07) will be attending Harvard University Law School in Fall 2008.

Natalie Lyon (BA ’03) After graduating from CU with a degree in economics and international affairs, Natalie accepted a job as a research analyst with TransMontaigne, an oil and gas supplier, in Denver. In this role she analyzed physical and futures oil prices and trends. The firm’s traders then used this analysis to hedge the firm’s product inventory and place discretionary trades. After spending a year and a half in this position she left just before Morgan Stanley acquired the firm. In February 2006 Natalie moved to New York and began working as an associate portfolio manager with Alliance Bernstein. Currently working in the firm’s Blend Strategies group she manages portfolios of global equities and currency forwards for institutional clients. This fall she will be enrolling in the MA International Affairs program at Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies, studying international development and hoping to focus on designing projects to promote micro-enterprise development.

Sergey Paltsev (PhD ’01) has been promoted to a principal research scientist position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Joint Program on Science and Policy of Global Change.

Sean Pinkney (BA ’07) will be attending the University of British Columbia’s MA program in economics in Fall 2008.

Justin Shuler (BA ’06) will be attending Vanderbilt University Law School in Fall 2008.

Kristyn (Howard) Ulrich (BA ’94) is working at BBC Research & Consulting in Denver, Colorado, www.bbcresearch.com.

Stephanie (“Stacie”) Cater Weiss (BA ’84, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) has a fabulous job at FAF Advisors, the asset management arm of US Bancorp, which manages $113 billion in assets. Her title is managing director–head of equity trading. She is a player/coach, in that she trades stocks, and also manages the group of people who execute all of the equity trades for the firm. She notes that there is no doubt that her association with the professors in the Department of Economics, particularly Professor Larry Singell, helped her gain the confidence, the knowledge, and the application to the real world that eventually led her to a very successful, fulfilling career.