Student Research

The Department of Economics offers the opportunity for students to engage in guided academic research. highly motivated students who are at an advanced stage of their studies have the opportunity to collaborate with faculty on studying a particular topic in Economics. In the past, students have taken advantage of three different possible paths to such collaboration: Garhart research award, honors theses, and research assistantships.

Garhart Award
Named after a former member of the department, this award is designed to support summer student research. It is a competitive award that is administered by the undergraduate research council at St. Thomas. The grant provides a stipend for a student and the student's faculty mentor to study a particular topic in the area of Economics. The result of this collaboration is expected to be presented at an undergraduate research conference.

Honors Thesis
Students who meet certain GPA thresholds may choose to work on an honors thesis. The thesis involves close collaboration between the student and a faculty member of the student's choice. In the past, successful collaborations have produced papers which have been presented at student conferences and in exceptional cases have been submitted to professional journals for publication.

Research Assistants
The department may hire accomplished students to assist faculty working on academic projects. Faculty requesting such assistance expect student assistants to perform a variety of tasks ranging from data collection to data analysis and literature review. The availability of such positions varies with the types of projects on which faculty work in a given semester.