School of Economics

HoS Update - 14 February 2023

  1. Staffing updates. I am delighted to inform you that Dr Todd Morris and Dr Manuel Staab are our first two confirmed appointments from the T&R Lecturer recruitment exercise. Todd (PhD Melbourne) is an applied and policy focused economist with research interests in public and labour economics. He already has publications/papers accepted in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of Public Economics and elsewhere. He will be joining us from HEC Montreal, where he is currently doing his postdoc, on October 9. Manuel (PhD LSE) is a theorist with an interest in game theory, information economics, economics of networks and a behavioural slant as well. He has revise and resubmits in the Journal of Economic Theory and the Journal of the European Economic Association. He will be joining us from Aix-Marseille, where is currently doing his postdoc, on October 30.

I am also delighted to inform you that Dr Annari de Waal (PhD Pretoria) has accepted a three-year contract for a TF position, to commence in the role on 3 July. Annari has already made a great impact in the School as a sessional lecturer and we look very much forward to continue working with her in her new role. I thank her, and the wider team, for having just successfully completed the Digital Learning Uplift project for ECON7021.

I hope to be able to share more positive staffing news in the next update.

  1. Linking Up with Other Parts of the University.

üSustainable Minerals Institute Connect Postdoc Opportunity. SLT agreed to purse this opportunity (details in my last HoS update) as long as we see it as being widened in scope to be of potential interest to more people in the School – Ian MacKenzie, whom I thank, is leading those conversations for the School and SLT, under his hat as a senior environmental economist. If you have an interest or have any feedback, please contact Ian directly. As mentioned in my last update document, Flavio, whom I also thank, is also provide an important input.

üInstitute for Social Science Research. Brenda and I have had a recent meeting with the new Director of ISSR. There are some potential exciting opportunities of working together and the aim will be to organize a ‘get together’ event, probably on the topic of disadvantage, in August 2023.

  1. Reminders.

üBEL Orientation. Just a reminder that there is an opportunity for staff to mingle with new Economics students at BELfest between 2.00pm and 3.00pm on Thursday 16 February at the ModWest Building. If you are around, I encourage you to attend to help welcome our new students to campus.

üCatching Up over Lunch. Looking forward to the all staff – casual, professional, academic – event this Friday between 12:30 and 1:15 in the courtyard of the General Purpose North 3 Building (39A), a concrete follow up on a Casual Staff Liaison Committee action point and a great opportunity to mingle as we start the new semester.

üSchool Grant Research process. A quick reminder of the streamlined process for the approval of grant research applications put to the last School Meeting by Brenda:

The following information to be emailed to the Director of Research (soe-dor@uq.edu.au):

  • Project Title (no need to send full application unless you seek readership)
  • Administering UQ School/Centre
  • Investigators
  • Personnel (and other in-kind contributions)
  • Funding amount requested and proportion to UQ SoE
  • Timeline
  • Is there teaching relief requested?
  • Lead CI current employment (cont/fixed-term until when)

Once reviewed the DoR will make a recommendation to the HoS.

Visitors’ application deadlines for 2023 – note the deadlines for this year’s applications to be considered by the Visitors’ Committee are:

  • Meeting 1: February 28, 2023
  • Meeting 2: May 31, 2023
  • Meeting 3: August 31, 2023
  • Meeting 4: October 31, 2023

It is important to remember there are still lengthy lead times needed for any visitor requesting visa assistance from UQ, please allow at least six weeks for the Global Mobility Team to process applications. Details on the School Policy can be found here, and this is the relevant PPL link.

üAPD Meetings and Submission – Thank you if you have completed your part of the APD process, and I hope you have found it useful. For those who have not, this is just a gentle reminder to supervisors and supervisees to complete your step of the process as appropriate.

üBEL Education conversation on ChatGPT and Generative AI with John Raiti as one of the guest speakers – tomorrow 11-12:15 at this Zoom link.

üNext HoS Surgery – tentatively scheduled for 11.45am-12:45pm Wednesday 8 March; Alison will confirm details closer to the time.

  1. Government matters update is attached and includes national international student data released by the Government.

  1. Other Thanks and Congratulations. Thanks to Begoña, Gemma, Kenan and Kieran Gibson for the Honours welcome event yesterday, which was very well attended. Thanks to Ian MacKenzie, John Raiti, KK, Carl and Carlos for the great Community of Practice on Authentic Assessment session last week. Congratulations are due to:

As a reminder, if there are achievements that you want me to highlight in future HoS updates, please drop me a line. These could for example include the likes of recent awards, prizes and fellowships, significant engagement or impact activity, A* journal publications, successful grants, or keynote/plenary slots at conferences.

We are close to Turkey and Syria in the wake of the terrible earthquake that has devastated the life of many. We also remain close to Ukraine as it continues to endure very dark times.

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