Graduation Ceremony for the 2024-2026 Cohorts

Perotti Modigliani Thesis Prize 2026

Ekaterina Siniakova received the Tinbergen Institute Perotti Modigliani Thesis Prize 2026 for her thesis, "Motivated Interpretation of Feedback Informativeness." She is the first recipient of the newly established annual prize. Ekaterina was supervised by research fellow Thomas Buser (University of Amsterdam).

Whether people see relative performance feedback on one task informative for other tasks - and whether that judgment shifts depending on whether the news is good or bad - remains largely unexplored. Ekatrina studied this question in a two-stage online experiment. You will be able to read more about her thesis and research in an upcoming news item. 

Valedictorians

Students Jiayuan (Joanne) Ren and Luca Tommasi, both graduating cum laude, gave valedictorian speeches. They looked back on their time at Tinbergen Institute, reflecting on their own experiences and those of their fellow students. They had words of encouragement and spoke about the responsibilities for the future. 

Jiayuan reflected on earlier generations, especially women such as her mother, who had far fewer opportunities to study and employ themselves. She described her mother as talented, creative and passionate about math, and said her mother would probably have made an even better PhD student. When Jiayuan told her this, her mother did not want her sympathy. She pointed out that many people far smarter than she was never had a chance like this.

Jiayuan reminded the audience that such opportunities were rare for her parents' generation, and rarer still for women. Even today, women in research often have to work harder to be taken seriously. She spoke about the female role models whose example has helped shape the opportunities open to her and other students today. She thanked the women researchers who came before her and those present in the room, because their example gives more women the confidence to choose a life in research

Teaching awards

Lecturers and teaching assistants were recognized with the Lecturer of the Year and Teaching Assistant of the Year awards. Students selected the awardees in recognition of their outstanding teaching.

Lecturers of the Year

• First-year Economics courses: Jasmine Xiao (University of Amsterdam), Financial Frictions.
• First-year Business Data Science course: Markus Leitner (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Integer Linear Programming 
• Second-year Economics and Business Data Science courses: Owen O'Donnell (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Health Economics
• Early Career Teacher: Nick Koning (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Advanced Econometrics I

Teaching Assistants of the Year

• Business Data Science course: Leon Czarnecki, Simulation Analysis & Optimization
• Economics course: Francesco Serra, Micro 1
• Joint Economics and Business Data Science course: Luca Tommasi, Econometrics 1

The ceremony concluded with a reception, giving graduates, families, and supervisors a chance to celbrate together after two years of rigorous study. We wish all our graduates the best of luck with their PhD studies and future careers.

Congratulations to all our graduates, we are very proud of you.