The Guild of Marshals at Southern Methodist University presented the Chief Marshal Award to Chief Marshal Emeritus Tom Fomby, Professor of Economics, at the December 2024 Marshal’s Luncheon. The award recognizes Prof. Fomby’s outstanding and dedicated service as Chief Marshal of Southern Methodist University for 12 years, from 2009 to 2020 and again from 2022 to 2023. Thank you, Tom. You will be missed!
Congratulations Fangzhou Sha for receiving the Outstanding Graduate Student Instruction Award!
“Congratulations on this wonderful accomplishment. The committee was impressed by your strong performance as lead instructor of a class, your organization and thoughtfulness in planning lessons, and your dedication to your students both in and outside of the classroom.” -Moody School and the Office of Student Academic Engagement and Success
Your Economics’ family is extremely proud of you. Continue the amazing work! 🙂
PhD student Fangzhou Sha is one of the three recipients of this year’s Outstanding Graduate Student Instruction Awards! The awards are sponsored by the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies and the Office of Student Academic Engagement and Success. As part of the award, the recipient will receive a $1,000 prize. There will also be an award ceremony during the spring semester to honor the recipient.
Congratulations, Fangzhou!
The Moody School held their Doctoral Candidacy Ceremony on October 18, 2024. Three economics PhD students and invited faculty attended the ceremony where the students received their candidacy certificate. Students in attendance were: Euclides Coelho de Medeiros Correia, Javier Gonzalez and Fangzhou Sha.
We are excited to share that Senior Lecturer Mea Ahlberg has been nominated for the 2025 HOPE Award. HOPE stands for Honoring Our Professor’s Excellence and is the highest recognition a student can bestow on a faculty member. The winners of the 2025 HOPE Award will be announced at the annual HOPE Banquet.
Assistant Professor Alipio Ferreira’s research Virtual reality is only mildly effective in improving forest conservation behaviors has been published in Scientific Reports.
Below is a brief description of his research in this publication:
Virtual Reality (VR) enables immersive experiences that can enhance awareness about environmental problems. We measure the effectiveness of VR versus 2D in an environmental campaign using a field experiment in Brazil. 617 passers-by at a mall were randomly assigned to watch a video clip about the Amazon Forest through VR or a traditional 2D device, with some being randomly interviewed before watching the movie (control group). We find that both the 2D and VR interventions increase individuals’ propensity to (i) contribute to an Amazonian humanitarian campaign, (ii) share contact information, (iii) interact with a conservation campaign, and (iv) state pro-conservation opinions. We find no additional impact of VR compared to 2D, but VR participants were more likely to engage with pro-conservation content online 3 months later. Our findings provide cautionary evidence about the additional potential of using immersive technologies, like VR, to improve conservation behaviors compared to 2D methods.
Congratulations, Alipio!
