Placements & Alumni

Avtandil Abashishvili

Avtandil Abashishvili started to work as a consultant at the The World Bank‘s Trade and International Integration Research Program. He obtained his PhD as part of the RTG team from the Chair of Prof. Dr. Philip Jung at the Technical University of Dortmund in Summer 2023. He has a MSc degree in International Economics from the University of Mainz in Germany.  Avtandil is an alumnus of the US State department financed Future Leaders Exchange Program and DAAD ERP study scholarship and an active film photographer and mountaineer.

His research interests are International Trade, Labor Economics, and Regional Economics.

More Info: linkedin.com/in/avtandil-abashishvili-923916102

Eyayaw Beze (UDE)

Eyayaw Teka Beze received his PhD from the Chair of Tobias Seidel at the University of Duisburg-Essen in the Summer of 2024. He has a master’s degree in development policy from KDI School in South Korea and in Comparative Local Development from a consortium of four European universities (the Corvinus University of Budapest, University of Regensburg, University of Trento, and the University of Ljubljana). He worked as an intern at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg, Germany, and as a lecturer of economics at Jimma University, Ethiopia, before joining the RTG and RGS in the Ruhr Area.

His research interests focused on regional and urban economics, particularly housing markets, and data science with R and Python.

E-Mail: eyayaw.beze@gmail.com

Malte Borghorst

Malte Borghorst started his PhD at the Chair of Tobias Seidel at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) in 2020 and submitted his dissertation in November 2023. In December 2023, Malte started to work at the Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung (BBSR),  Bonn. 

He holds a Msc. in Economics from the University of Copenhagen and a Bsc. in Economics from the Freie Universität Berlin. Prior to joining the RTG, Malte worked as a Research Assistant at the Transport Economics Group of the Technical University of Denmark and the BUILT Department of the Aalborg University.

Malte is interested in labor and urban economics.

Nina Furbach

Nina Furbach started to work for the European Central Bank after completing her dissertation in the Spring of 2023 at the Chair of Philip Jung as part of the RTG program at the Technical University of Dortmund (TUDo). She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Heidelberg and a Master’s degree from the University of Bonn, both in Economics. She had started her PhD in 2018 at the Ruhr Graduate School in Economics (RGS Econ) and in 2019 she had joined the first cohort of the RTG.

Nina’s research interests are centered around Macroeconomics, Monetary and Public Economics.

Johannes Gallé

After completing his dissertation at the Chair of Thomas Bauer at the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB) Johannes Gallé was offered post-doc position at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin. Johannes studied Economics at the University of Freiburg, where he obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. In his PhD, Johannes worked at the intersection of development, regional and environmental economics with a geographical focus on India.  During his PhD studies, Johannes he visited the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in Delhi for a research stay.

Maren Kaliske

Maren Kaliske is working as a  postdoctoral researcher at the Chair for New Economic Geography and East Asia at the University of Duisburg Essen. She received her PhD as part of the RTG 2484 – Regional Disparities & Economic Policy from the TU Dortmund University (Professorship for Urban, Regional and International Economics).

Read more:  https://maren-kaliske.com/

Knarik Poghosyan (TUD)

Knarik Poghosyan  received her PhD from the Chair of Philip Jung at the Technical University of Dortmund.

Before joining the RTG as a doctoral researcher, Knarik obtained Master’s degree in Economics from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena and Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Management from the Armenian State University of Economics. Since April 2024, Knarik worked as a post-doctoral researcher at DIW Berlin. Her research was primarily concentrated on regional and innovation economics as well as public policy analysis.

E-Mail: Knarik.Poghosyan@tu-dortmund.de

Philipp Markus

Philipp Markus joined the RWI team as a post-doc after receiving his PhD degree from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). Philipp had started his PhD studies in 2018 at the Ruhr Graduate School in Economics and then joined the RTG in 2019. Philipp studied Economics in Bonn and Cologne where he obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. He wrote his dissertation under the Chair of Tobias Seidel.

His research interests are in the fields of Public Economics, Inequality, and Regional Economics.

Lea Nassal

Lea Nassal successfully defended her dissertation at the Chair of Marie Paul at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Spring 2024. She will join the University of Warwick as a postdoctoral research fellow in Fall 2024.

Prior to joining the RTG at Marie Paul’s Chair, she studied economics at the University of Bonn where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree.

Lea’s main research interests are labor, gender and health economics.

E-Mail: lea.nassal@uni-due.de

Siegfried To (UDE)

Siegfried To defended his dissertation in Summer 2024 at the Chair of Tobias Seidel, where he been part of the RTG since 2020. Siegfried has a B.Sc. in Economics with a Political and Computer Science minor as well as a Master’s in Economics at the University of Heidelberg and Mannheim respectively. He spent one semester abroad at the Keio University in Tokyo.

Siegfried’s research interests have included the application of Machine Learning methods in Economics as well as regional heterogeneity.

E-Mail: siegfried.to@uni-due.de

Lu Wei (UDE)

Lu Wei was a graduating PhD student in the job market 2024, working under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Tobias Seidel at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Before joining the RTG for her doctoral studies, Lu has achieved a Master’s degree in Economics from Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and a Bachelor’s degree in International Finance from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Her scholarly pursuits were enriched by diverse professional experiences in investment management and economic consulting. Lu’s research was primarily centered around International Trade, Regional and Urban Economics. Her doctoral research projects included notable works such as “A Quantitative Analysis of the EU – South Korea Free Trade Agreement”, “Trade Liberalization and Production Fragmentation”, and “High-Speed Rail and Regional Disparities in China: A Quantitative Analysis”.

E-Mail: lu.wei@uni-due.de