Three graduates of the Master's in Economics program are now nearing completion of their doctoral studies. Nujin Prasertsom, Tae Bong Kim and Lirong Xia are expected to finish their Ph.D. studies in May 2011 and are now job market candidates.
"Moving from college to a Ph.D is a big step. Duke's Master's program is a nice bridge that equipped me with the knowledge necessary to pursue a Ph.D. successfully," said Prasertsom, who came to Duke from Thailand and is now in the department's Ph.D. program in economics.
Her specializations include macroeconomics and resource economics, focusing on endogenous growth, trade and development. Prior to studying at Duke, she received a B.A. in economics from Thammasat University in Bangkok. Visit Prasertsom's website to learn more about her research.
Korean student Tae Bong Kim also specializes in macroeconomics but chose econometrics as his second field of interest.
"Duke is one of those rare schools that offers competitive training in all subfields - micro, macro and metrics, " Kim explained when asked why he chose to pursue his Master's degree at Duke. "The program has flexibility which allowed me to take the many mathematics and statistics courses that are essential to prepare for a Ph.D. program."
Kim also shared that getting a Master's degree in economics guarded him against surprises and frustrations at the rigor and expectations of doctoral work. He chose to stay at Duke to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. Before coming to North Carolina for his graduate studies, he received a B.A. in economics and business from Yonsei University in Seoul. Visit Kim's website to learn more about his research.
Lirong Xia, originally from China, has a different background than Kim and Prasertsom but also decided that Duke was the right place for him to study.
"I came to Duke with little knowledge of economics," explained Xia, whose undergraduate degree was in computer science and technology from Tsinghua University in Bejing.
"Through the MA program, I've learned the major aspects of economics, together with many practical methodologies that solve real-world problems," said Xia. "The high-level ideas I learned in economics have been very helpful to my Ph.D. research, which mainly focuses on the intersection between computer science and economics."
Xia's research interests include artificial intelligence, social choice theory, game theory, mechanism design and algorithms. After receiving his Ph.D. from Duke's Department of Computer Science in 2011, he will continue to seek connections between computer science and economics. Visit Xia's website to learn more about his research.
After a short holiday break, these three job market candidates will be busy finishing their dissertations and interviewing with potential employers to determine the next step in their careers beyond Duke.
Learn more about the MA in Economics program.
See Duke Economics' other job market candidates.
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