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Week of 13 March 1998 Vol. I, No. 23 Feature Article Donald named Sloan Research Fellow in economics by Eric McHenry Stephen Donald has been awarded one of the eight Sloan Research Fellowships given annually to American economists. The two-year $35,000 grant will enable Donald, a CAS assistant professor of economics, to further his research into such topics as the econometrics of auctions and regulation of the U.S. telecommunications industry. Each year, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation selects 100 research fellows representing the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, neuroscience, computer science, and economics. The fellowships are meant to reward creativity and independence demonstrated early in the careers of scholars. Candidates may have completed their Ph.D.'s no more than six years prior to being nominated. Stephen Donald Photo by Kalman Zabarsky "It's a big coup," says Jeffrey Miron, CAS professor and chairman of the department of economics. "It suggests that the people we're hiring at the untenured or early-tenure level are distinguishing themselves nationally, building reputations that extend way beyond the University." As department head, Miron was responsible for Donald's nomination and will approve all allocations of the fellowship money, which is earmarked for expenditures directly related to research. "Part of the Sloan can be used for summer support," Donald says, "and that's good. It will allow me to visit some of my collaborators and attend conferences, present results, and get some direct feedback on my work. The best conferences are generally during the summer." The Sloan Foundation has done well by BU economists in recent years. Donald joins four other members of the department's faculty -- Itzhak Gilboa, Kevin Lang, John Leahy, and Miron -- as a recipient of the fellowship. "It puts another official stamp of approval on what we believe have been big gains in the quality of the department," Miron says. "The department's reputation has been growing for about 10 years now. We've been hiring more and more well-established people." A native of Australia, Donald took his bachelor's degree from the University of Sydney in 1985. His Ph.D. is from the University of British Columbia, where he developed some important and abiding academic friendships. Professors John Cragg and Harry Paarsch, both of whom served as members of his thesis committee and references for his Sloan Fellowship nomination, have shared author's credit with Donald on several articles published within the past five years. His work has appeared more than a dozen times in prestigious scholarly periodicals, including the Journal of Econometrics and the International Economic Review. Although Donald was passed over for selection in 1997, his publishing record clearly made an impression on members of the Sloan Fellowship program committee. "I must have been close last year," he says, "because they asked Jeff [Miron] to renominate me this year. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised when I received the letter a couple of weeks ago. You don't expect to get these things." Donald's receipt of the fellowship was serendipitously timed. Not having to worry about financing his various projects will help him devote energy to an even more ambitious endeavor -- raising a baby daughter. At just nine weeks, Katherine doesn't fully appreciate the significance of her father's windfall. "For the moment, she's pretty focused on eating and on not sleeping when she's supposed to," Donald says with a laugh.