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Shiva and Elizabeth Nanda Graduate Fellowship in Economics
Established in 2021 with a generous gift from Shiva and Elizabeth Nanda, the fellowship is intended to provide financial support to students pursuing their doctoral degree at Simon Fraser University's Department of Economics.
One or more fellowships (valued at a minimum of $14,000) will be granted annually in any term to graduate students joining the PhD program at SFU Economics and who have demonstrated academic excellence and promise of outstanding achievement with particular emphasis on intellectual ability, originality and ability in research and the potential for significant contribution to the field of economics.
2024 - Uzair Azmat
Uzair joined Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) Department of Economics in 2020 as part of the PhD program after completing his Master’s degree at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He has also cleared all levels of the Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) desgination (USA). His research interests lie in financial economics and macroeconomics, with a special focus on how housing markets respond to alternative mortgage contracts. He has presented his research on reference dependence behavior in risk-sharing mortgages and its impact on default rates at multiple conferences in Canada, the UK, and France.
In addition, Uzair has published a paper in the Journal of Real Estate Research. He is currently investigating debt-averse borrowers and their influence on interest rates, prepayment rates, and contract selection. Beyond his research, Uzair takes great pride in teaching economics, where he enriches his classes by incorporating his research and fostering critical thinking.
2023 - Huiqian Louise Song
Huiqian joined SFU's economics department in 2017 as part of the MA program and later continued her studies in the Ph.D. program, following the completion of her B.A. at SFU in 2015 and gaining experience as a data analyst. Her research interests lie in economic history and institutional microeconomics, with a special focus on understanding how institutions shape economic behavior. She's had the opportunity to present her research on the impact of improved tenure security on landowners' responses to environmental issues at multiple academic conferences. In addition, Huiqian utilizes historical data to delve into the evolution of marriage matching in response to changes in inheritance laws over time. Beyond her research endeavors, Huiqian derives great satisfaction from teaching Microeconomics and integrating research into her classes to foster critical thinking and bridge the gap between theoretical concepts and their real-world applications for her students.
2022 - Minoru Higa-Reyes
Minoru moved to Vancouver together with his wife and son to start the Ph.D. in Economics at Simon Fraser University (SFU). He got his B.A. in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP), and his Master's in Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara (USA) and Tilburg University (Netherlands). He is an entrepreneurial economist with the ability to communicate with various audiences and with teaching experience. He performs advanced econometrics analysis and uses his cloud computing, machine learning, and spatial data analysis skills to work with large-scale datasets, such as semi-structure smartphone Big Data, satellite data, household surveys, and administrative records. He has published in academic journals and presented at several academic conferences. While at SFU, he teamed up with his wife and won several SFU Student-Community Engagement grants to implement social impact projects in Vancouver. Currently, he is conducting research in the fields of Environmental and Labor Economics.
About the Donor
Shiva Nanda is an SFU alumnus who graduated with a Master’s Degree in the Department of Economics in 1985. Although it has been more than 30 years since his time at SFU, Shiva still looks back at that period of his life with great fondness, most importantly for the colleagues and professors who left a lasting impact on him. Today, Nanda heads NCS Global in New Hampshire, United States. An entrepreneur at heart, Nanda established the company in 1995 which in the past 26 years, has grown to become a leading provider in E-waste recycling and asset recovery services.
SFU has had a very positive impact on Shiva’s professional and personal development—drawing in his experience forging his own path as a successful entrepreneur, Shiva and his wife, Elizabeth, decided to give back to SFU through the Shiva and Elizabeth Nanda Fellowship in Economics, to support outstanding PhD students at a critical moment in their development as scholars.
Dedicated to the memory of their parents Madhusudan Nanda, Sakuntala Nanda, and Penelope Stetson as well as Nanda's sister and brother-in-law, Sailabala Das and Dr. Suresh Chandra Das, the award is also a tribute to Nanda's late mentors professors Parzival Copes, Zane Spindler, Terry Heaps, and Don DeVoretz.