The Department of Economics would like to congratulate Lonjezo Sithole on receiving a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship! This fellowship supports doctoral students who have achieved candidacy and are working on dissertations that are “unusually creative, ambitious and risk-taking.”
Upon receipt of the award, Lonjezo said that “This award means so much to me. Getting recognition for my work at this level feels so surreal and is very encouraging. The award could also not have come at a better time. While I love teaching, I am happy that I will not have teaching obligations during the upcoming job market season so I can focus on the job market.” He added that he was grateful for the advice and support of his advisors and the department as a whole and that he planned to use the time to balance the demands of his dissertation with the job market.
Lonjezo’s dissertation will be titled “Econometric Methods for Credible Policy Analysis in the Digital Age” and will focus on “reliable use of complex high dimensional or unstructured data (including texts and images) and empirical testing of behavioral assumptions behind welfare analysis.” You can read his full abstract, as well as those for the other winners, here.
Lonjezo is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics. Before attending Michigan, he received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Malawi and an MSc in Econometrics from the University of Edinburgh. He plans to graduate in the Winter 2027 semester.
