Presenters

2026 Kansas Workshop in Economic Theory

May 8, 2026

Presenters (in program listing order)

Shelly Hooks

Shelley Hooks is the vice chancellor for research at the University of Kansas, where she co-leads the research enterprise across all KU campuses. She is also a professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology. In addition to leading the Office of Research, Hooks advocates for research on and off campus, implements research integrity requirements, and oversees the administration of research grants and contracts. Hooks also shares oversight of activities related to technology commercialization and business and industry outreach. 

Tarun Sabarwal

Tarun Sabarwal is Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas, author of Monotone Games, and Founding 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 the theory of equilibrium, game theory, and decentralized interdependent decision making. He is Economic Theory Fellow of SAET.

Faidra Monachou

Faidra Monachou is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the Yale School of Management. Her research focuses on market design and operations for public policy, particularly education systems. She uses tools from operations research, economics, and data science to design interventions that optimally balance efficiency and fairness. She earned her PhD in Operations Research from Stanford University and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

Ashwin Kambhampati

Ashwin Kambhampati is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the United States Naval Academy. His research is in microeconomic theory, with a focus on game theory, contract theory, mechanism design, and matching. Much of his recent work studies the design of robustly optimal mechanisms. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021.

David McAdams

David McAdams is Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and Professor of Economics in the Economics Department at Duke. McAdams has broad research interests in microeconomic theory and game theory, with particular focus on (i) the epidemiology of information, with applications to infectious disease and misinformation, and (ii) auction theory, with applications to market design. He is author of “Game-Changer: Game Theory and the Art of Transforming Strategic Situations” (W.W. Norton, 2014) and co-author of “Games of Strategy: Sixth Edition” with Susan Skeath and Avinash Dixit (W.W. Norton, 2025), a leading game-theory textbook.

John Zhu

John Zhu is an associate professor of economics at the University of Kansas. His recent research on regulating machine learning algorithms is revise and resubmit at the American Economic Review. His work on contract theory has been published in Econometrica and the Review of Economic Studies. Prior to KU, he was an assistant professor at Wharton and a Cowles visiting professor at Yale. 

Svetlana Boyarchenko

Svetlana Boyarchenko is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests are Mathematical and quantitative methods, Financial economics, and Real options. 

M. Ali Khan 

M. Ali Khan (Abram Hutzler Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University) obtained his B. Sc. (Econ) from the London School of Economics, and M. Phil and Ph. D from Yale University in 1969, 1972 and 1973 respectively. He is interested in how economics stands in relation to mathematics and language as well as to issues of ethics and epistemology, and how these registers call the robustness of disciplinary boundaries into question. 

Ryota Iijima 

Ryota Iijima works in microeconomic theory, with particular interests in learning, decision theory, and information economics. He is a Professor of Economics at Princeton University and was previously an Associate Professor at Yale University. 

Ayca Kaya

Ayca Kaya is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Miami. She is an applied microeconomic theorist whose work focuses on information economics with applications to dynamic markets with adverse selection and incentives within organizations. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Mathematical Economics and the Journal of Economic Theory. 

M. Bumin Yenmez

M. Bumin Yenmez is a Professor of Economics at WUSTL. He studies economic design, focusing on affirmative action and diversity. His research has been implemented in school assignment systems in New York and Chile, and state-level vaccine allocation. Before joining WUSTL in 2023, he worked at Boston College, Carnegie Mellon, and Microsoft Research. An associate editor for the Journal of Economic Theory, he holds a PhD from Stanford and a bachelor’s from Caltech.

Bing Liu

I will receive my PhD in Economics from Stanford University in June 2026 and will join the University of Queensland as an Assistant Professor in July 2026. My research is in microeconomic theory, with a focus on mechanism and market design. My recent work studies nonlinear pricing, market design with countervailing incentives, consignment auctions in emissions markets, AI chatbot conversation algorithms, and water procurement.

Mariana Laverde

Mariana Laverde is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Boston College. Her research examines the performance of centralized allocation systems, particularly in education markets. She studies school choice, teacher reassignment, peer effects, and teacher-student match quality, using administrative data and structural models to evaluate how assignment mechanisms shape efficiency, equity, and student learning.