Graduate Ramadani Receives Dean Award at Expo

05/22/2014 1:45 PM

By Sarah Marshall, ’15

Fadil Ramadani, a graduate student working toward his Master of Science in qualitative finance, won the Dean’s Award at the 2014 Student Scholarship Expo for research on global finances. 

His projected focused on gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates and what they mean for the economy. Specifically, Ramadani was interested in examining the emerging market economies to determine which variables contributed to recent reductions in GDP growth rates. Because emerging market economies represent over one-third of global GDP growth, it is important to understand the factors that affect growth. 

“My instructors, especially Dr. Horvath, Dr. Elshahat, and Dr. Sinha, were extremely helpful throughout this process. Not only did I learn a majority of the tools and concepts under their guidance, but they consistently notified me of opportunities such as the Expo,” said Ramadani.

Having completed his thesis for the MSQF program, Ramadani’s professors encouraged him to present at the Expo. He entered the Expo to learn how to present complex data and to respond to critiques and questions in professional settings. 

“One of the most challenging aspects of the Expo was portraying my findings in a way that the judges fully understood my research,” he said. “Being that I had no information regarding the judge’s background, I often had to explain aspects of my research in layman’s terms. Since most of my research was based on advanced statistics, I found this to be quite challenging.”