University of San Francisco
MS International and Development Economics
Economics Newsletter
Fall 2012
Alumni News
Jennifer Sturdy,
Spring 2005
Title: Associate Director for Impact Evaluation
Company: Millennium Challenge Corporation
As a Director for Impact Evaluation, I guide improvements to MCC program policies, practices and methods in relation to the evaluation of economic development investments, including recommendations of policies and procedures. I also am involved in several country impact evaluations and am currently working specifically in Tanzania and Indonesia.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) mission is to provide assistance that will support economic growth and poverty reduction in carefully selected developing countries that demonstrate a commitment to just and democratic governance, economic freedom, and investments in their country. I work in the Department of Policy and Evaluation, which provides management oversight for the development and implementation of policy and best practices related to country eligibility, economic analysis and monitoring and evaluation, knowledge management and policy reform.
Alexandra Ghosh, Spring 2011
Title: PhD candidate, Economics
Company: Jacobs University - Bremen, Germany
While I am a PhD candidate at Jacobs, I am technically employed by the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT). I receive my PhD from the University but my research funding comes from the institute. I am conducting field work in Sumatra, Indonesia. My doctoral research examines the economic causes of deforestation, and attempts to provide policy suggestions to achieve the "win-win" objective of reducing environmental degradation and exacerbated poverty.
Laine Rutledge,
Spring 2009
Title: PhD candidate
Company: Economics, University of Washington
Also working as a Research Assistant for the West Coast Poverty Center, mainly responsible for website updates and identifying interesting policy research to highlight (this position is also through the University of Washington).
Jill Luoto,
Spring 2004
Title: Associate Economist
Company: RAND Corporation
I conduct research on questions of international development to inform policy.
Rosemary Rawlins, Spring 2011
Title: Program Analyst
Company: Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services
I work in the Office of Evaluation and Inspections doing healthcare policy evaluations.
Philipp Ross,
Spring 2011
Title: Research Analyst
Company: Brown University Department of Economics
Full-time RA for tenured professor in the research areas of applied microeconomics, public economics, and industrial organization.
“IDEC's focus on analytical research using quantitative methodology combined with hands on experience in the field and theoretical training in the classroom provides a unique skill set not gained from other U.S. master's programs. These skills allow graduates to be successful in the field of international development or can be applied to any number of careers were solving problems using rigorous analytical techniques is valued.”
Herman Ramirez, Spring 2011
Title: Sample Manager
Company: Market Tools
I evaluate sampling feasibility of domestic and international online surveys. Work with a wide variety of vendors to secure high quality online sample (survey takers) to meet clients’ specific targeting needs and budget.
Todd Wynn,
Spring 2009
Title: Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Director
Company: American Legislative Exchange Council
I work for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which is the nation's largest non-partisan association of state legislators in the country boasting over 2000 members from over 50 states. I direct ALEC's energy, environment and agriculture department which work to craft model legislation in a wide variety of issue areas, including public lands, climate change, chemical regulation, agricultural technology, regulatory reform, air and water quality, federal-state relations, environmental health, waste management, rural development, and property rights.
Espen Moseidjord, Spring 2011
Title: Project Manager
Company: Kristiansand (Norway) County Administration
Email: espenmoseidjord@hotmail.com
On 9/3/12, I started a new job with the county administration office in Kristiansand. This is a three-year project where I will be the project manager for a new statistics and analysis portal. The job includes establishing the portal, collecting relevant data for the southern region of Norway within sectors like business, education, equality, transportation, social welfare, integration etc. The portal will be used for private and public sector and for those in need of data, analysis and trends for their respective municipality within the county. This past winter I lived in Manila, the Philippines, working for the Norwegian Embassy. Responsibilities included writing economic (and some political) reports from the Philippines and Southeast Asia meaning many visits and meetings with representatives from the government, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other relevant institutions. I also helped develop our webpage by, among other things, interviewing Norwegian NGOs and companies, then writing articles for the webpage. Others tasks included regular consular/visa work at the embassy, representation and some maritime work.
Marko Koosel, Fall 2011
Title: Product Management Director
Company: Salesforce.com
As a product manager at Salesforce.com, my work involves building analytics software to support wide variety of business users. Use cases for analytics vary from simple reports on the number of contacts I own in my database to highly complicated predictive analytics on customer attrition for example.
“The IDEC program has given me important quantitative tools to analyze these use cases and map them to functional requirements that solve real life problems.”