Annual AP Economics Conference, 2018 Speakers
Michael Owyang is an assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He received his Bachelor of Arts in economics and Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. He also received his Master of Arts and doctorate in economics from the University of California, San Diego in 1996 and 2000, respectively. His principal research interests are time series econometrics, Markov switching, and Bayesian econometrics. Owyang joined the St. Louis Fed in 2000.
Peggy Pride served as the AP economics teacher at St. Louis University High School in St. Louis from 1992 until her retirement in 2008. She earned her undergraduate degree in history and economics and her master's degree in business education at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Ill. Pride served on the Test Development Committee for AP economics from 1999 through 2004. She was the micro question leader at the annual reading for four years and previously served as table leader. Pride travels the Midwest as an AP consultant and has written curriculums for the College Board, CEE, Junior Achievement and economics textbooks.
Fred Smith has a bachelor’s degree from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, a master’s degree from the University of Delaware, and a doctorate from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., all in economics. At Davidson College in North Carolina, he teaches introductory, public and urban economics, intermediate microeconomics, and American economic history. His most recent research (co-authored with Jason Barr of Rutgers University) looks at how the urban spatial structure of New York has evolved over time. Smith attended his first AP economics reading in the summer of 2002, and he has been involved with AP program ever since. He is currently the chief reader of AP macroeconomics.
Dan Thornton is president of D.L. Thornton Economics LLC. He was vice president and economic adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis before retiring in August 2014. Prior to joining the St. Louis Fed in 1981, Thornton was an associate professor of economics at Central Michigan University. Thornton received his doctorate in economics from the University of Missouri, Columbia and a Master of Science degree in economics from Arizona State University. He has published widely in leading economics and finance journals. He is an associate editor of Applied Economics Letters and Applied Financial Economics; a research fellow at the Centre for Finance and Credit Markets; a member of the Central Bank Communication Network; and a member of the advisory board of the International Centre for Banking and Corporate Governance. He is also a member of the Board of the St. Louis Council on Economic Education and a trustee of the Missouri Council on Economic Education.
Guillaume Vandenbroucke is a research officer in the Research Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He is also a lecturer in economics at Washington University in St. Louis. Vandenbroucke received a doctorate in economics from the University of Rochester in 2004. Before joining the Bank in 2014, he was on the faculty of the economics departments at the University of Southern California and the University of Iowa. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s department of economics. One line of Vandenbroucke's research focuses on family economics, including the economic causes and consequences of fertility and marriage decisions. Another line of research focuses on education and its connection with income inequality between individuals and countries.
David Burgin serves on the AP Microeconomics Development Committee. He received his bachelor’s degree from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, his Master of Arts in education from Tusculum College (now Tusculum University) in Greeneville, Tenn., and his doctorate in education from East Tennessee State University. He teaches AP micro- and macroeconomics, economics and government at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tenn., where he’s taught since 1992.
Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Virginia and also director of the Mercatus Center. He received his doctorate in economics from Harvard University. He is a New York Times best-selling author, and has been called "one of the most influential economists of the last decade" by The Economist; "America's Hottest Economist" by Bloomberg BusinessWeek; and a "Top 100 Global Thinker" by Foreign Policy magazine. He is the host of the Conversations with Tyler podcast series and, along with Alex Tabarrok, co-writes the Marginal Revolution blog. He is the co-author with Tabarrok of Modern Principles of Economics, an introductory textbook.
Ana Hernández Kent is a policy analyst for the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. She conducts primary and secondary research and data analysis on household balance sheet issues. Her primary research interests at the Fed include economic disparities and opportunity, wealth outcomes, class and racial biases, and the role of psychological factors in making financial decisions. Ana received her doctorate in experimental psychology with concentrations in social psychology and quantitative methods in behavioral sciences from Saint Louis University. She received her Master of Science in experimental psychology from Saint Louis University and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame.
Gary Stone is chair of the Department of Accounting, Economics, and Finance at Winthrop University, as well as the director of the university’s Center for Economic Education. Stone is an economics professor and teaches a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. As director of the center, he conducts economics workshops for K-12 teachers in South Carolina and other states. Stone has conducted economic education teacher training programs in eight foreign countries, including Russia, Egypt and Ukraine. He also is active in training Advanced Placement economics high school teachers and grading the AP microeconomics exam each year. Stone received his doctorate in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his Bachelor of Science in economics and mathematics from Memphis State University.
Abdullah Al-Bahrani is the director of the Center for Economic Education and an associate professor of economics at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). He received his doctorate from the University of Kentucky in 2010. He also holds a master’s in economic theory from American University in Washington, D.C, and a Bachelor of Science in business economics from the University of Louisville. Al-Bahrani’s focus on economic education has earned him at NKU the Award for Excellence in Teaching and Instruction (2016) and the Dean’s Citation for Outstanding Teaching at the Haile/U.S. Bank College of Business (2015). His teaching and research focuses on innovative teaching methods and making economics more accessible to students. He incorporates social media, TV, movies and music to encourage student engagement in the classroom.
Florencia Gabriele is an adjunct professor in the departments of Political Science and International Studies and of History and Economics at Emmanuel College in Boston. Her classes include Comparative Politics of Developing Countries, Political International Economic Relations, and the Capstone International Studies course, among others. She received her doctorate in international relations in 2014 and her Master of Arts in political science and government from in 2009, both from Northeastern University in Boston. She also holds a Master of Arts in international economics and finance from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. She earned her undergraduate degree in economics and management at Emmanuel College.
Mary Clare Peate is an instructional designer with Marginal Revolution University. She earned a doctorate in economics from George Mason University in 2016 and holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a Master of Arts in secondary education and teaching from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She earned her undergraduate degree in economics at the University of California, San Diego.
