Welcome to Our New Faculty Members

Laurier is pleased to welcome five new full-time faculty members in 2026-27.

Igor Carreira recently defended his PhD in Economics at the University of British Columbia. His research spans international finance, macroeconomics, international trade, and development economics. His current work studies sovereign default, international reserves, and international financial assistance, while his applied research examines the effects of trade and agricultural productivity on land use and deforestation. Prior to his PhD, Igor received an MA and a BA in Economics from Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV EPGE) in Brazil. At Laurier, Igor will be teaching applied econometrics, the economics of the Canadian banking and financial system, and advanced macroeconomics.

Noah Spencer is an applied microeconomist whose research examines how neighbourhoods, public policies, and institutions shape education and health outcomes and is in the final stages of completing his PhD at the University of Toronto. Noah will be teaching our introductory econometrics course.

Moyo Sogaolu is returning to the Lazaridis Economics Department as an Assistant Professor. Most recently, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Moyo is an empirical labour economist whose research focuses on how labour market institutions and social policies shape economic outcomes. She holds a PhD in Economics from McMaster University and an MA in Business Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University. Moyo will be teaching labour economics and our honours research paper course. Outside of her teaching and research, she is a self-described foodie who enjoys exploring different cultures through food. She has recently taken up tennis and is enjoying the challenge of learning something new.

Brett Williams has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New South Wales in the AGORA Centre for Market Design. He completed his Ph.D and M.A. in Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a B.Sc. in Mathematics at the University of California, Davis. Brett is an experimental economist whose work covers topics on general equilibrium, markets and market design, agent-based modelling and risk preferences. He combines laboratory experiments, simulations, and theory to explore such topics. At Laurier, Brett will be teaching elective courses in behavioral and mathematical economics, as well as econometrics.

 Qiyao Zhou is joining the LED as an Assistant Professor and the Ira Gluskin Chair in Real Estate. Qiyao was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Oklahoma State University. Qiyao’s research lies at the intersection of real estate and urban economics and industrial organization. Qiyao’s work has focused on a range of issues related to housing policy design and government regulation in housing and transportation markets. Qiyao obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland in 2024. Outside of academia, Qiyao is an elite amateur table tennis player and also enjoys playing soccer and pickleball, as well as reading and hiking. Qiyao will be teaching a senior level course in urban and real estate economics and MABE econometrics.

The LED also extends a farewell to Julian Ludwig and Jahangir Alam, who will be taking up other opportunities.

Did you know Laurier’s economics department has a newsletter that you can subscribe to? Sign up at: https://bit.ly/lednewsletter . You can check out all of our articles hot off the presses as they come out on the site (accessed through the link) as well!