The department congratulates Junjie (Jay) Guo, the recipient of the 2019-2020 College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Research Fellowship. We asked Jay to reflect on winning this fellowship, his research, and plans for the future.
In spring 2019, I was honored to receive the College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Research Fellowship for 2019-2020. This fellowship is intended to help advanced graduate students in the College make progress on their dissertations. I came to IU in fall 2015 to begin my study in the Department of Economics. After the major coursework in the first two years, I started to do research. My primary research interests are macro-finance, empirical asset pricing, monetary economics, and applied econometrics.
When I look back, the experience of doing research is like a voyage in the sea. I sometimes think that I am stuck in the middle of nowhere and I feel very lonely and frustrated during this journey. Yet, after struggling for some time, I realize that I have to be patient and believe that I will find the lighthouse that guides our direction one day. There will be ups and downs however and what doesn’t kill you really makes you stronger.
Finally, I am grateful to Professor Todd Walker and Ke-Li Xu for their great support and writing reference letters for me. Meanwhile, I would like to thank Brandie Roberts for her help during the application process. In addition, I thank all other professors and fellow students in the Department of Economics from whom I learn a lot. The wonderful experience in the past four years has made me a better person and I hope I can make significant progress on my dissertation in the next two years and find a job in an academic or policy institute.
The College of Arts