Professor Alessandra Faggian was recently named the 2015 Geoffrey J.D. Hewings award winner at the 62nd annual North American meeting of the Regional Science Association International. The annual conference brings together hundreds of regional scientists working in North America.
The award, which was named in honor of Professor Geoffrey J.D. Hewings who introduced numerous graduate students to the study of regional science and mentored them as young scholars, recognizes distinguished contributions to regional science research by scholars who have completed their doctoral studies in the last 10 years. Dr. Faggian received her PhD in Economics from the University of Reading in 2005.
In her work at Ohio State, Dr. Faggian studies regional and urban economics, demography, labor economics and the economics of education. Her research on innovation has made ground-breaking contributions to the understanding of how regional knowledge spillovers lead to innovation. Her publications cover a wide range of topics including migration, human capital, labor markets, creativity, and local innovation and growth.
She has co-authored over 50 academic publications, of which 38 are in referred journals. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Oxford Economics Papers, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, Feminist Economics, Geoforum, Regional Studies, Papers in Regional Science and the Journal of Regional Science. She is co-editor of Papers in Regional Science and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Regional Science and Regional Studies, Regional Science.
In 2013, Dr. Faggian was appointed by the European Commission as one five jurors to select the European Capital of Innovation 2014 (iCapital Award). In 2010, she was elected councillor-at-large of the Regional Science Association International. In 2012, she became a member of the Board of Directors of the Western Regional Science Association and she was elected councillor-at-large for the North American Regional Science Council.
In 2008, AEDE’s Professor Elena Irwin was also awarded the Professor Geoffrey J.D. Hewings prize.
AEDE continues to cement its reputation as one of the top programs in the field of regional science. The department has received prominent awards in the field, hosted a graduate student conference on regional economics, has faculty travel extensively for engagement in the subject area, and the two most popular academic journals in the field of regional science are co-edited by AEDE faculty.
Additionally, in a recent independent study that ranked authors based on the number of publications in the ten core regional science journals during the period 2010-2014, Professor Mark Partridge was ranked as the most influential author working in the field and AEDE’s program was ranked as the number one regional economics program in the U.S. and among the top five in the world.