Three Cheers for the Class of 2018!

On the occasion of Caltech's 124th annual commencement ceremony, the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to present another group of outstanding PhD recipients. Please join us in congratulating the class of 2018 on their next steps.

Ryo Adachi - After successfully defending his thesis, Computational and Neural Mechanisms Underlying Decision-Making In Humans, Adachi received his PhD in January of this year. His advisor was John O'Doherty. Since leaving HSS, he joined DeNA, a gaming, e-commerce and entertainment content distribution company based in Tokyo, Japan, as a data analyst.

Jun Chen - Chen received his PhD this month after a successful defense of his thesis, Essays on Early-stage Financing and Firm Behavior, with Michael Ewens and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal as his advisors. He was awarded a 2017-2018 Linde Institute Graduate Fellowship to support his studies. Chen will start his new position as an assistant professor of finance at the Renmin University of China School of Business this fall.

Marcelo Fernandez - During his final year in HSS's Social Sciences PhD program, Fernandez received an HSS Chair's Council Graduate Fellowship and successfully defended his thesis, Essays on Market Design, with Federico Echenique as his advisor. In the fall, Fernandez will join the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as an assistant professor of economics.

Lucas Núñez - Núñez graduated this month after completing his dissertation, Unobserved Heterogeneity in Observational Studies of Political Behavior, with Michael Alvarez as his advisor. During his final year of graduate studies, he received an HSS Chair's Council Fellowship to support his research on statistical methods and political behavior. Núñez has accepted a position as an assistant professor of political science at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, starting August 2018.

Li Song - After completing her dissertation, Three Essays on Mechanism Design, last summer, with Leeat Yariv as her advisor, Song is now a business development consultant for Xenon Health. In her new role, she analyzes and designs digital marketing strategies for the company and provides technical support for the website and application development.

Pengfei Sui - Sui received his PhD after successfully defending his thesis, Essays on Investor Beliefs and Asset Pricing, with Lawrence Jin as his advisor. He was awarded a Linde Institute Graduate Fellowship for his final year in HSS. This fall, Sui will start as an assistant professor of finance at the School of Management and Economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

Mali Zhang - Zhang successfully defended her thesis, entitled, Information and Strategic Decision-Making in the Oil and Gas Industry: An Empirical Assessment, with Matt Shum as her advisor, this spring. In her final year, Zhang was a Clarence J. Hicks Scholar. After Caltech, she will join the Boston Consulting Group.

More information on these students and our departing postdoctoral fellows can be found in the 2017-2018 Next Steps publication (hard copies available in the Baxter lobby).