AV俱乐部

Catherine Maclean - MA 2004.聽聽I began my time at AV俱乐部 in September, 1998.聽聽I was a shy, quiet girl from Truro, Nova Scotia who was eager to enter a new stage of her life academically, culturally, and socially.聽聽Not sure exactly what I would choose as a major, I was confident it would be in one of three areas: mathematics, the classics, or economics.聽聽Over the next two years, I took classes in each of these three areas.聽聽By my third year, I knew Economics was for me.聽聽I enjoyed the combination of mathematics, social issues, and statistics.聽聽I entered the honours programme with an interest in Development Economics.聽聽My classmates were a pleasure to work with, we spent many hours studying and debating various economic theories and their applications.聽聽

After completing my undergraduate degree in 2002, I decided to enter a graduate programme at Dal and initially entered the Masters of Development Economics.聽聽Although I enjoyed the development classes, I started to work with Profs Shelley Phipps, Peter Burton, and Lars Osberg on an international comparison of childhood obesity project.聽聽This work focused my interests on health economics and I switched to the Masters of Economics programme.

After completing my studies in 2004, I accepted at job at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in the Health Economics Research Group (HERG).聽聽I spent two and a half years working at HERG, analyzing the economic consequences of substance use and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of聽聽substance use treatment programmes.聽聽I had the opportunity to work with great researchers, attend health conferences, and publish ineconomic and health journals.聽In the fall of 2007, I entered a PhD programme in Economicsat Cornell University.聽聽I also met my husband, Doug Webber, in the pre-programme math prep camp!聽聽We were married on August 1, 2010 on the Tall Ship Silva in Halifax Harbour.聽We are currently in our fourth year of a five year programme.聽聽My聽interests are health behaviours and my current research focuses on the long-run health impacts of economic conditions at school-leaving, implications of rising obesity on recruitment in the U.S. military, and bullying.聽聽Doug currently uses U.S. Census data to estimate the prevalence of monopsony power in the U.S. labor market and the impact of monopsony power on employment, wages, and firm behavior.

I enjoyed the one-on-one mentorship offered in the Dal Economics Department.聽聽I knew all my economics professors and they knew me by name.聽聽Their office doors were always open for advice, questions, or a casual conversation.聽聽Although the department was not large, the quality of professors was very high.聽聽The Economizer on Fridays was a super opportunity for students and professors to interact in an informal situation.聽聽Working with professors聽聽early in my career was a great experience: I learned first hand what empirical research entails.聽聽The Atlantic Canada Data Centre is a great resource for empirical researchers like me, I was able to work with many rich Statistics Canada social science data sets.聽聽The Dal Economics programme gave me great preparation for my work at UM and my studies at Cornell.聽聽I am very pleased with my decision to attend Dal and look back very fondly on my time there.