Frost School of Business welcomes new faculty member
SHREVEPORT, LA — Dr. Mohammad Ali has joined Centenary’s Frost School of Business as assistant professor of economics. Ali specializes in development and applied microeconomics and comes to Centenary after teaching appointments at Gettysburg College, Michigan State University, and the University of New Mexico.
“The Frost School of Business welcomes Dr. Ali as the newest member of our team,” says Dr. Barbara Davis, acting dean of the Frost School of Business. “After a careful, diligent search, Dr. Ali rose to the top as the perfect economist capable of leading young, bright students through the many aspects of macroeconomic theory. We were all very excited to have him join the faculty and bring his expertise to several economic courses that he will be teaching this year.”
Ali has taught courses in macroeconomics, microeconomics, econometrics, biostatistical methods, development economics, and industrial organization. At Centenary, he will teach macroeconomics, econometrics, and statistics at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Ali’s research interests include early childhood development; health, nutrition, and food security; cognitive and non-cognitive development; and household decision-making. He has written and presented on such diverse topics as the effect of children’s current health on time allocation and cognitive production in Ethiopia, health and hunger in Nepal, and the fiscal sustainability of water utilities in the United States. He has published articles in Agricultural Economics, International Economic Journal, and Agricultural Water Management.
Ali plans to engage students in a future out-of-class collaborative research project exploring how households cope with covariate shocks. The project will examine whether collective shocks engender collective coping responses, and if households act collectively in various ways to address post-shock challenges. The project will employ panel data from Ethiopia and evaluate five categories of collective action: financial contribution, activism, political action, voluntary action, and vocal responses. Ali hopes that the research will lead to publication in collaboration with students who are interested in the project.
In addition to his work in academia, Ali brings professional experience from Ernst & Young Global Limited and the Marie Stopes Society, where he served as assistant manager of qualitative research. He worked at the Ministry of Industries in Pakistan from 2010 to 2012 and was assistant director of the Public Private Partnership Unit of Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance from 2012 to 2013.
“What really attracted me to Centenary was the small class sizes and close interactions between faculty and students as a result of these small sizes,” says Ali. “I employ the use of active learning strategies such as structured class discussions, in-class group assignments, and in-class reflective writing assignments. I also place an emphasis on developing the students’ empirical research skills by focusing on independent research projects with mentorship throughout the semester. All of these initiatives are ideally suited for a place like Centenary where faculty-student relations are strong.”