Elizabeth “Betsy” Hoffman was first a student of History, earning her undergraduate degree in the field in 1968, and her Ph.D. four years later. Her pivot to Economics only occurred later, in 1979, where she graduated from Caltech with her Ph.D.
She served as a founding member of both the Economic Science Foundation and of the Cliometrics Society, and has been cited over ten thousand times. She has held her winning of the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award as one of the highpoints of her career, alongside her contributions to the fields of Experimental Economics, Cliometrics, and Behavior Economics, which she was able to see come into their own over the course of her career.
Outside of her extensive contributions to the academic field of Economics, she has been an able administrator, holding significant positions at three separate universities. She started her administrative career at Iowa State University, serving as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences between 1993 and 1997, before becoming Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois (Chicago). She would go on to become President of the University of Colorado between 2000 and 2005, before eventually returning to ISU to serve as the Executive Vice President and Provost between 2007 and 2012, after which she would wind down her career, settling into her last role as a professor of Economics at ISU after
her tenure as Executive Vice President ended.
Dermot Hayes was born and raised in the agricultural industry. Coming from a family farm in Ireland, he pursued an education in Agricultural Economics, graduating with First Class Honors in 1981 from University College Dublin, and earning his Ph.D. in Economics in 1986 from the University of California Berkeley. After graduation, he immediately took up a teaching position at Iowa State University, rising from an Associate Professor to not only becoming a full Professor, but also serving as the Pioneer Chair in Agribusiness, (from 1999 until the present) as well as holding the honor of being the Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences (from 2017 until the present).
Beyond his professional career, he has earned numerous accolades for his contributions to the United States agricultural sector. He’s spoken before the United States House Committee on Agriculture, been granted a variety of awards, including the USMEF Distinguished Service Award, and the title of “Honorary Master Pork Producer” due to his extensive work on international trade and its implications within the US Pork Industry, something that he’s credited as having contributed to greatly over the course of his career.
His contributions to academia are no small matter either, having amounted nearly 18,000 citations over the course of his career, as well as being mentioned in publications such as the “Who’s who in Economics” as well as being listed in the Big 12 Faculty of the Year in 2024. Beyond that, he was listed as an Outstanding Faculty Member five years in a row between 2001 and 2005, and has been granted numerous other awards and prestigious positions throughout his career at Iowa State University.
Eun Kwan Choi has had a long and eventful career in the field of academia, with a background stretching across multiple continents and several decades. He started his time in higher education at the Seoul National University College of Commerce, graduating in 1971 with a B.A. in Business Administration. Three years later, he would graduate with his Master’s in Economics from the University of Houston, another four years after that, he gained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Iowa.
His career is one characterized by his contributions to economics journals, not merely in the form of an extensive publication history, but also by his roles as editor for various journals. He first joined the Board of Editors for the International Economic Journal in 1990, serving there for five years. At the same time, he also served as a Co-Editor for the Journal of Economic Integration, and from 1991 onwards he would serve as an Associate Editor for the International Review of Economics and Finance (a quarterly journal). He would later serve as an Associate Editor for the Pacific Economic Review and the Japanese Economic Review, as well as holding the position of Series Editor for the journal, Frontiers of Economics and Globalization. Perhaps
most impressively, he stands as a Founding Editor of the Review of Developmental Economics, working as editor for 19 years, from 1996 until 2015. In addition to his sizable contributions to Economics academic journals, he also served as an author to several books, largely focusing on International Trade and Globalization.