Dr. 玛利亚姆 Khawar:经济学研究提供了迷人的旅程

Dr. 玛利亚姆 Khawar教授 经济学, has a natural curiosity about the economic systems of the world and the issues that impact them. 自1997年在mg冰球突破豪华版下载开始她的职业生涯以来, that curiosity has led to continuous research into comparative development across countries throughout the world, with a particular focus on geography as a factor that could explain different development outcomes.

“地理是一个非常广泛的变量, 所以你必须深入挖掘，看看这会给你带来什么,哈瓦尔解释道. “它让我看到了文化，让我看到了制度. 什么是近因? 什么是终极原因? 所以，有各种不同的途径可以探索.”

In 2016, 她把这项研究成果写进了一本书, 《mg冰球突破豪华版下载》,并继续探索本研究中的主题, such as the difference in development outcomes between southern Italy and the more wealthy northern Italy. 来帮助这个过程, Khawar started using geographic information system modeling with the help of Dr. 特雷弗·布朗宁，环境科学助理教授.

Throughout her career, Khawar has never worried about finding new research topics to pursue. As she finishes one project, she uncovers more questions that lead her down new paths.

“这很奇妙. 这就像一本永不结束的书，”她说. “You don’t know the ending and you just have to keep reading to see what happens next.”

It can be easy to put research on the back burner with the other pressures and responsibilities of teaching in higher education. 但卡瓦尔说，如果她不花时间做研究, she would lose part of herself as an academic and wouldn’t remain true to the reason she entered the profession in the first place.

“I really love my discipline and I love the questions I get to research and answer, 我认为这非常重要,”她说。. “我认为这让我成为了一个更好的老师.”

作为一名学生，经济学并不总是卡瓦尔的首要目标. She began her undergraduate studies as a Computer Science major at Knox College in Illinois, 被所涉及的数学和编程的逻辑吸引到这个领域. 然而, the tedious process of debugging programs when something went wrong caused Khawar’s interest in computer science to start shifting away. 就在那时，她发现了经济学.

“I found it appealing because it wasn’t a value judgment that you were imposing on things, 只是一种客观看待事物的方式,她解释道. “And the whole idea of weighing costs and benefits in decision making, I found that very natural.”

尽管她更关注经济, Khawar继续主修计算机科学，并获得了两个学位. 因为她的计算机科学背景, she already had the extensive math prerequisites she needed in place when she decided to pursue graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University. It also enabled her to quickly adapt to the statistical software they used in graduate school along with software that’s helped her in the profession since.

Although Khawar loved the idea of traveling to different countries to help leaders solve their economic problems as part of an international organization, she loved the idea of teaching at a small school like Knox and doing research even more. At EC, she found a college that was similar to Knox, right down to the purple and gold colors.

卡瓦尔的整个职业生涯都在埃尔迈拉度过, where she is constantly trying to evolve and explore new ways to educate her students to be the best teacher she can be. 她继续跟踪经济趋势, both through former classmates who now work internationally and extensive reading, 她见证了这个领域的发展. 现在人们更多地认识到社会和文化是如何影响经济的, 从理论经济学到应用经济学的转变, and an increased focus on how economists can communicate ideas to the average person in an easily understood way.

在学术层面, 然而, she’s seen students shifting towards fields they perceive as having more concrete job opportunities such as accounting, 金融, 或业务.

“What I see and what economists see is that you can apply economics to every single field. 对我来说, the grounding of economics and getting that knowledge in economics means that you can go and work in any field, 但我不认为外界的人看到了这一点.”

Khawar said one of the highlights of her career at EC has been the opportunity to teach Term III courses, 她在COVID之前做了大约十年. 她希望很快能重新开始教他们.

“Taking students abroad has been a very enriching part of my experience as a professor,”她说。. “It’s some of the most rewarding experiences because you get to see students grow and learn in a way that nothing else can do. Just seeing new cultures, new perspectives, new places, new ways of doing things.”

在秘鲁, she and her students examined how the country’s changing geography led to different modes of economy. 她还研究了泰国和柬埔寨的全球化, from both an economic and sociological perspective with a friend who is a sociologist. 其他地区还包括巴西、澳大利亚、越南和南非.

“其中一些地方我去过很多次. 我去过亚马逊三次，”她补充道. “有多少人能这么说?”