Economics PhD students and related faculty and family members celebrated the start of a new academic year with our annual picnic on August 17 at Stephens Lake Park, with over 40 in attendance. Among them were the five incoming students pictured below.

We enjoyed some good food and each other's company, and three award winners were announced: Jeonghyun Kim was awarded the Korea Studies Graduate Student Scholarship after her strong performance in 1st-year courses, while Nabi Arjmandi and Wei Zhao each received a Dr. John Kuhlman Graduate Fellowship. Based on his excellent research, Nabi has been accepted into the Princeton Initiative this year, a selective program on the intersection of modern finance and macroeconomics. Wei completed an impressive 2nd-year paper in econometrics, and completed other research that turned into a coauthored paper with a positive "revise & resubmit" decision at The Econometrics Journal. Details about all economics PhD awards are linked here.