The Klein prize provides one year of (candidate) tuition plus stipend for the best (proposed) dissertation research in econometric theory and/or research that utilizes advanced, innovative econometric techniques. The level of the stipend is set to match the Rackham pre-doctoral award. The recipient of the Klein award will be selected by the Fellowships committee (following the process for the Roosa and Taylor awards), in consultation with the econometrics faculty and will initially be awarded annually.
Recepient:
Lonjezo Sithole - Winter 2025
Lonjezo Sithole is a fourth year PhD candidate in Economics in the Department of Economics, University of Michigan. He received his Bachelor of Social Science degree (majoring in Economics) and a Master of Arts degree in Economics at the University of Malawi, followed by a Master of Science degree in Econometrics at the University of Edinburgh and a Master of Arts degree in Economics at the University of Michigan.Before joining the University of Michigan for his doctoral studies in 2021, he worked with the World Bank.
Lonjezo’s research interests mainly lie in theoretical and applied econometrics. He is particularly interested in statistical optimal transport, high-dimensional statistics, causal inference, as well as nonparametric and semiparametric methods, with an eye towards applications in economics. His third year economics paper won the 2024 Outstanding Third-Year Paper Award from the Department of Economics. Lonjezo is a member of the Econometric Society and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
