Presenters
2025 Kansas Workshop in Economic Theory
May 9, 2025
Presenters (in program listing order)
Arash Mafi
Dr. Arash Mafi is the executive Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas and has served in various academic leadership positions since 2015. He is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy, a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, and a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics. His research focuses on integrating fundamental science and application at the intersection of quantum nonlinear optics and complexity.
Tarun Sabarwal
Tarun Sabarwal is Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas, author of Monotone Games, and Founder and Director of the Center for Analytical Research in Economics. He received his PhD in economics and MA in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. He has chaired and organized the Kansas Workshop in Economic Theory since 2009. His interests are in economic theory, game theory, and decentralized interdependent decision making. He is Economic Theory Fellow of SAET.
Michelle Avataneo
Michelle is a microeconomist currently interested in using evolutionary game theory to study morality. She also has some previous work on matching theory. She is expected to receive her PhD in Managerial Economics and Strategy from Northwestern in June 2025. She will then spend the following two years as a visiting professor at ITAM.
Stefano Barbieri
Stefano Barbieri is Professor of Economics at Tulane University. Dr. Barbieri is interested in cooperation broadly defined. Examples of applications of his research include the behavioral basis of the decision to join a citizens’ group, the analysis of efficiency and profitability of fundraising mechanisms, and the effects of complementarity of efforts within teams on the competition across teams. Stefano Barbieri is Co-Editor of Economic Inquiry and Associate Editor of the Journal of Public Economic Theory.
Matthew Kovach
Matt Kovach is an economist working mainly in decision theory and behavioral economics. Much of his work has focused on understanding the effects of belief distortions and updating biases. He has also worked in stochastic choice, with a particular focus on incorporating limited attention and reference-dependence into the stochastic choice setting.
Bernard Cornet
Bernard Cornet is the Charles Oswald Professor of Microeconomics at the University of Kansas. He is a past president of the SAET (Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory) and is currently Executive Director and Secretary of SAET. He was past Editor of the Journal of Mathematical Economics and is currently Associate Editor of Economic Theory, Economic Theory Bulletin, and several other journals. His research focuses on financial economics, economic theory, dynamics and optimization.
Yangwei Song
Yangwei Song is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on information economics, repeated games, and decision theory. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester in 2017.
Edward E. Schlee![]()
Edward E. Schlee is Professor of Economics at Arizona State University. He holds a BA in Social Science (Economics, History, and Philosophy) from the University of North Texas and a PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois. He writes on the economics of uncertainty and information, specifically the value of information in decisions and games, contract theory, choice theory, welfare economics, and the history of economic theory. He is an Associate Editor of The Journal of Public Economic Theory and the Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, and a Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, and was an Editorial Board member of the American Economic Review.
John Zhu
John Zhu is an associate professor of economics at the University of Kansas. He is interested in contract theory and algorithmic fairness. His research on regulating Human-AI systems is being revised for resubmission at the American Economic Review. His research has been published at Econometrica and Review of Economic Studies. Prior to KU, he was an assistant professor at Wharton and a Cowles Foundation visiting professor.
Suraj Malladi
Suraj Malladi is an assistant professor at MEDS, Kellogg. His research interests are in microeconomic theory, particularly in spatial search and learning. He completed his PhD in economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2021 and spent two years as a faculty member at Cornell University prior to joining Kellogg.
Anne van de Nouweland
Anne van de Nouweland is Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon. She holds a Ph.D. from Tilburg University with a specialization in game theory. She is interested in a variety of applications of game theoretic methods, ideas, and principles, with a focus on applications in economics. Her recent work is related to equilibrium in (local) public good economies, farsighted stability, and axiomatic approaches to coalitional problems.
Federico Echenique
Federico Echenique is a Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on revealed preference theory, game theory, and market design. Previously, he was the Allen and Lenabelle Davis Professor at Caltech. A Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Game Theory Society, he has received multiple NSF grants and published extensively in leading economics journals. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and has contributed significantly to theoretical economics.
Silvana Krasteva
Silvana Krasteva is an Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. She has earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University. Her research specializes in industrial organization and public economics, with a focus on market competition, bargaining, innovation, and public good provision. Her recent work examines competitive information disclosure in search markets.
Yijun Liu
Yijun Liu is a PhD candidate at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on microeconomic theory, in particular mechanism design and information economics.
Kevin Duanmu
Dr Duanmu is currently a professor at Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics, Harbin Institute of Technology. His research interests include mathematical economics, statistical decision theory, nonstandard analysis and Markov processes. He has published his papers in journals such as Econometrica, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society, Annals of Statistics, Biometrika, and Journal of Economic Theory.