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Students' outstanding reward

28 May 2008

From left: Dr Fiona Cochrane, students Jason Ng, Alexander Nichols and Yuchao Xiao, Dr Andrew Cochrane and acting dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics Professor Owen Hughes.

Three Faculty of Business and Economics PhD students have been awarded Donald Cochrane Postgraduate Research Scholarships.

The winners are Accounting and Finance student Yuchao Xiao and Econometrics and Business Statistics students Jason Ng and Alexander Nichols.

The three-year scholarships, valued at $28,000 a year (plus allowances), are awarded annually to the most outstanding full-time PhD students conducting research in a business discipline.

The scholarships commemorate the late Professor Donald Cochrane, a distinguished economist who was the foundation dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics. Professor Cochrane held office from 1961 to 1981.

Members of Professor Cochrane's family awarded the scholarships at a recent ceremony.

Mr Xiao's research involves world price sustainability; Mr Ng's research focuses on the development of new methods for the production of accurate forecasts; and Mr Nichols' research is on exploration models forecasting the distribution of time dependent data.

In other Faculty of Business and Economics news, Department of Accounting and Finance academics Madhu Veraraghavan, Kevin Tant and Damian Barry have been awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence for their influence on student learning and student engagement.

The award recognises their involvement in the development of the Treasury Dealing Room project, a computer-based system that replicates Australia's financial institutions, using software developed by staff from the Department of Accounting and Finance and the Faculty of Information Technology.

The project creates a rigorous market atmosphere in the university classroom and provides students with the opportunity to apply theoretical finance concepts they have learned.