Keith A. Bender (kabender@uwm.edu), Ph.D., 1994: What my post-Duke years lacked in stability, they made up in frequent- flyer miles! Upon graduating, I took up a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. This ended up being a three-year deal when my job at the U.S. Department of Labor vanished the Friday I was supposed to start in 1995 (the year that the government shut down in December). It worked out fine, as we were able to go back to Aberdeen, where I continued to develop a taste for (unfortunately expensive) single malt whiskies. After stops at Louisiana State University and the Social Security Administration, we have settled down in Milwaukee (where I continue my expensive habit, but justify it as a way to keep my thin, native-Florida blood warm during the winter!), where I am an assistant professor in the economics department at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and where Amy and I are proud parents to two girls, Sophie (4 years) and Fiona (18 months).
Faik Koray (eokora@lsu.edu), Ph.D., 1984: I had a wonderful time and a great learning experience at Duke. After completing my dissertation, I was hired by LSU as an assistant professor. Since then it has been almost 19 years, and I am still at LSU. In between, I spent several months in Turkey, where I had a joint appointment at Bilkent University and the Central Bank of Turkey. Currently, I am the Marjory B. Ourso Professor in the Department of Economics. My wife, Tulin, is an economist at the Louisiana Public Service Commission. My son, Deniz, is now a senior in high school, and thanks to him I have learned all the intricacies of college admissions.
Dixie Watts Reaves, Ph.D., 1993: I have just been named the Undergraduate Chair for the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech.
David Weaver (David.A.Weaver@ssa.gov), Ph.D., 1992: As a newly minted Ph.D., I traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1992, where I took a job in the Social Security Administration’s Office of Research and Statistics. Shortly thereafter I married AnneMarie Stofer (a nurse who worked at Duke Hospital). Ten years later, I still work for the Social Security Administration and I’m still married to AnneMarie (who still works for a hospital, albeit one in Arlington, Virginia). Change has never been our strong suit. When I first arrived in Washington, I was eager to be involved in the policymaking process, so I was thrilled to be assigned to a team that was developing legislative proposals to reduce poverty among elderly women. I crafted what I thought were excellent Social Security proposals designed to help older divorced women. Upon presentation to the Social Security Advisory Council (which at the time advised Congress), members of the Council not only dismissed my proposals but then proceeded to discuss how benefits for older divorced women could be cut. Fortunately, they never followed up on this idea, but out of concern for older divorced women everywhere, I’m no longer allowed to brief advisory panels. More recently, the Social Security Administration allowed me to do a rotation on Capitol Hill, where I was able to work as a legislative aide for Senator Blanche Lincoln. This was a great experience: Senator Lincoln is a wonderful person and I was allowed to work on a number of legislative issues of interest to me. The experience was not without problems. I was on Capitol Hill when the anthrax-laced letters were opened in the Hart Office Building. Although Senator Lincoln’s office is in a different building, we were told we had to be tested. So, where did they set up a makeshift clinic for the testing? The Hart Office Building. We’re still working out some of the kinks here in Washington on emergency response. Overall, I’ve enjoyed my time in Washington and at the Social Security Administration. I have been able to work on some important policy projects and have been given the time at Social Security to pursue an interesting research agenda. AnneMarie and I recently bought our first home (it only took 10 years to save up enough money to buy a home in Washington!). Our next-door neighbor is a Duke grad (and a basketball nut), so in some ways I still feel connected to the Duke campus.
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