Faculty Changes at the Lazaridis Economics Department in 2025

July 1 marks the start of a new academic year, and that means changes in the faculty at the Lazaridis Economics Department (LED).

Steffen Ziss retires

Steffen Ziss retires after 23 years at Laurier, having come to us after completing his PhD at Queen’s University and spending some time at Trent University and the University of Sydney.  He had a huge impact on the department and university in his time here, having served as Director of the MA in Business Economics (2006-9), University Senator (2009-15), Member of the Board of Governors (2013-15) and Chair of the Economics Department (2009-2018).

Steffen’s defining feature as a member of the faculty is his strong belief in contributing to the public good. For nine years as Department Chair – one of our longest serving Chairs – the department benefited from his skill in listening and his ability to represent all view points on an issue, distilling majority views and dissenting opinions. He was also meticulous in his attention to detail, structure and organization.  Steffen’s commitment to ensuring transparency and fair processes showed most clearly when he led a drive to develop and get department support for a set of tenure guidelines.  Those guidelines have been one of the main factors that junior faculty have highlighted as contributing to a positive climate in the Economics Department.

As an instructor, Steffen cared about his students and helping them to learn things that they can use in their life after university. He played a key role in developing economics courses for business students, particularly in the MBA, as well as undergraduate and MABE microeconomic theory and industrial organization courses.  Bill Morrison says: “In the MBA program we often teamed up on course and program design ideas. I know that students very much appreciated the time and effort Steffen put into making the application of economic analysis relevant to real world problems.”  Tracy Snoddon notes that “as colleagues and office neighbours, we talked “ teaching” a lot together over the years. He was the first to acknowledge when his teaching strategies were not working as effectively as he liked. He redesigned his approach in almost every class he taught in order to engage students with the material more effectively and was genuinely excited about doing this.  … his enjoyment and excitement about teaching increased over time, and even in his years post-Chair, he never ran out of steam at the end of the term.”  

The attitude of running full steam was also evident in his research, with publication in 2024 in The Manchester School and 2025 in the Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade. His long-standing research agenda focused on the role of mergers and managerial compensation in oligopolistic markets – for instance, examining whether or not mergers are a vehicle to increase innovation.

Outside of work, a telling measure of Steffen’s character is apparent on the soccer field, where he is an accomplished player. During ‘Profball’ or intermural games, Steffen would often defer from making a tackle if the result could bring physical injury to another player, even if it meant backing off and providing that player with more of a competitive advantage than they deserved.

Steffen will be greatly missed in the department, the School and the University. But we wish him the best as he transitions to devoting more time to the projects he already has underway in his new home in Nova Scotia.

Departures

The LED congratulates two of its members on their new positions:        

Muthoni N’gan’ga, who came to Laurier on a limited term contract in 2021, will be heading to the University of Victoria (BC). Before coming to Laurier, Muthoni completed a PhD at the University of Nairobi, and taught at Strathmore University, Strathmore Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Kenyatta University, School of Economics.  A member of Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa, Muthoni’s research involves experimental analyses of programs to improve agricultural productivity and gender equality. Muthoni continues on as an adjunct professor with the LED, so it’s not entirely goodbye.

Umaima Imran is leaving to take up a position at the University of Birmingham-Dubai. She was with us only for one year, while finishing up her PhD at Toronto Metropolitan University in international macroeconomics.   While here she taught economics of growth, applied econometrics, and mathematical economics.

Best wishes to both in your careers!

Promotions

Edda Claus has been promoted to Professor in the Department.  Edda’s PhD is from Australian National University, following a BA at McGill and an MSc at Université de Montréal.  She is a Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA) (Australian National University, ANU), a Research Fellow at the Centre for Monetary and Financial Economics (Carleton University) and an Associate Editor at the Journal of Economic Surveys.  Her recent research is at the intersection of behavioural economics and macroeconomics, exploring how individuals develop expectations about future macroeconomic events, and the consequences of monetary policy shocks, with recent publications in the Journal of Monetary Economics and European Economic Review.  Edda regularly presents at conferences, including internationally, and has been an invited speaker at the Bank of Canada’s CSCE working group speaker series and at the Bundesbank. She has taught a range of courses in her time at Laurier, including environmental economics, introductory statistics, international finance, forecasting, and macroeconomics, and has supervised many successful Master’s research projects.

Ridwan Karim has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.  Ridwan’s PhD is from the University of Toronto. Ridwan is an applied microeconomist working in the field of development economics, focusing on how public provision of education and health services respond to trade shocks, reforms in public policy, and changes in political institutions. Recent research examines gender gaps in education and adaptation to climate change in Bangladesh. He has taught applied econometrics, the honours research paper, and a popular elective on development economics and political economy.  Ridwan holds a BBA from the Institute of Business Administration in Dhaka, an MA in Economics from York University (Canada) and a PhD from the University of Toronto.  

New faculty members

Monica Jain is joining the LED as an Assistant Professor (tenure track), from her current position as Principal Researcher in the Monetary Policy Analysis and Research division of the Financial Markets Department at the Bank of Canada.  Monica is an applied macroeconomist whose research and policy work has focused on a range of issues related to inflation, inflation expectations and central bank communications.  Her work with her Bank of Canada colleagues was awarded the 2025 Purvis Memorial Prize by the Canadian Economics Association.  She holds an MA in economics from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD from Queen’s University.  Monica will be teaching our honours research paper and third year macroeconomics courses.

We are also very fortunate to have four new faculty members joining us on limited term contracts.

Jahangir Alam comes to us from his current position as Visiting Professor at Texas A&M University.  His research has focused on capital misallocation, data synthesis for longitudinal business data, and the long-run effects of monetary policy on economic growth.  He has taught a variety of courses across a number of institutions, ranging from Financial Econometrics and Data Analysis to Macroeconomic Theory and Industrial Organization. Jahangir will be teaching the economics of growth, machine learning in economics, and our honours research paper course.

Julian Ludwig was most recently at Texas Tech University, following his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin and a BSc and MSc in economics from the University of Bern. His research focuses on the estimation of forecasts and impulse response functions (IRFs) and the impact of expectations on business cycles.  He has taught at courses in macroeconomics and economic data analysis at the undergraduate and Ph.D. levels, emphasizing real-world applications, programming, and effective data communication. He has a textbook on Economic Data Analysis available for free at www.julianfludwig.com/eda. Julian will be teaching our third year applied econometrics course as well as a course on forecasting methods.  He has a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and a BSc and MSc in economics from the University of Bern.

Doron Nisani received his PhD from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and prior to joining Laurier was an assistant professor in Economics and Finance at the Business School of the University of Haifa and most recently a visiting professor at Carleton University. His current research focus is at the intersection between economic theory and game theory. Doron will be teaching  intermediate microeconomic theory, mathematical economics, and financial economic theory.

Wilfried Youmbi Fotso is in the final stages of finishing his PhD at Western University, with a focus on using structural microeconomic analysis to understand decision-making when households deviate from traditional rational behavior. Prior to that, he received an MA in Mathematics, Economics and Statistics from the African School of Economics, and an MSc and BSc in Mathematics from the University of Yaounde 1.  He will be teaching a range of courses at the LED, including statistics, econometrics and industrial organization.