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Walter Mead Graduate Student Fellowship
We are pleased to announce that Walter and Thelma Mead recently pledged a generous donation to free a talented entering Ph.D. student from teaching responsibilities for one year during their course of study when it would be most advantageous in completing research. Walter Mead, Professor Emeritus of Economics, had a distinguished career as a natural resource economist at UCSB.
Walter and Thelma Mead
Christopher Goodwin who came to UCSB with the incoming doctoral class of 2007-08 is the second Mead Fellow. Chris received his undergraduate training from Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand where he received his Bachelor of Forestry Science, 1st class honors in April 2000. He also holds a Master of Science in Forest Economics (December 2001) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Chris is currently working on applied microeconomics research projects in the areas of environmental, natural resource, and public economics. The research questions he is currently investigating are: “How does a quasi-experimental air pollution shock affect birth outcomes”, “How do fishing vessels respond to announced future closures of fishing areas”, and “Is there a marginal effect of child tax credit changes on birth timing?” He is working towards completing a dissertation of three separate papers on these research topics.
The third Mead Fellow is Miguel Delgado Helleseter who started his doctoral program with the incoming class of 2008-09. Miguel received his undergraduate degree from UC Riverside earning a Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics with High Honors. He went on to receive his Master of Arts in Economics with an emphasis in Business Economics here at UC Santa Barbara (Spring 2004). Miguel, who will be started his third year of the doctoral program in the Fall 2010 quarter, is focusing his main area of research in the field of labor economics. He is particularly interested in the value of bilingual education or skills, both the perceived value from the point of view of employers as well as any other abilities that early learners of multiple languages may develop. He is also planning on examining one or several Latin-American labor markets and how much employers value English-speaking skills. He is also interested in researching differences in the skills and/or achievement of students who learn a second language early in life and those who do not or who start learning later in life.
