Congratulations to UCSB Economics Department Graduates!

It is with great pleasure that the UCSB Department of Economics congratulates the twelve doctoral candidates who were awarded their Ph.D. degrees at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year. Their hard work, determination, and scholarly contributions were recognized and celebrated at the UCSB Graduate Division Commencement ceremony on June 12, 2025.

As we offer our fond farewell to this outstanding group, we look forward with great confidence to the impactful work they will go on to do in academia, government, and industry. We are certain that each graduate will continue to represent UCSB Economics with distinction in the years ahead.

2025 Ph.D. Graduates and Placements:

• Alexander Abajian – Yale School of the Environment (Postdoctoral Researcher)

• Roberto Amaral de Castro Prado Santos – California Institute of Technology (Postdoctoral Researcher)

• Sebastian Brown – Placement to be announced

• Kenneth Chan – National University of Singapore, Medical School (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Behavioral Health Economics)

• Toshio Ferrazares – Hunter College, CUNY (Assistant Professor of Economics)

• Thomas Fullagar – Placement to be announced

• Yeqing (Ariel) Gao – Lyft, Inc. (Data Scientist)

• Yuanzhe Liu – Placement to be announced

• Dario Trujano Ochoa – Texas A&M University (Postdoctoral Research Associate)

• Micah Villarreal – Northwestern University (Postdoctoral Scholar)

• Lei Yue – Amazon, People Experience and Technology Central Science (Economist)

• Caroline J. Zhang – University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Lee Business School (Visiting Assistant Professor of Finance)