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Fellowship Program

The Fellowship Program is a mentorship and engagement program to support the mission of the Center for Advancing Women in Economics (AWE).

Fellows are invited to:

  • Attend two CORE Weeks, which includes attending seminars, dinners, and other networking opportunities with staff and visiting economists.
  • Participate in Fellowship lunches with members of the Richmond Fed Research department during CORE Week visits.
  • Present their work at a brown bag seminar and receive feedback from Richmond Fed economists.
  • Attend, virtually, other seminars and brown bag presentations hosted by the Richmond Fed Research department.

The fellowship period is January – December annually.

2024 Fellows

Stephanie Johnson

Stephanie Johnson

The Richmond Fed’s Center for Advancing Women in Economics is pleased to announce the selection of its two inaugural fellows: Stephanie Johnson and Oliko Vardishvili.

Stephanie Johnson is an assistant professor of finance at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Her research focuses on household finance and empirical macroeconomics.

Johnson was an analyst at the Reserve Bank of Australia in the Financial Stability Department prior to starting her graduate studies. She completed her doctorate in economics from Northwestern University in 2019 and earned a bachelor's degree in economics with honors from the University of Tasmania.

Oliko Vardishvili

Oliko Vardishvili

Oliko Vardishvili is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Irvine. As a quantitative macroeconomist, she is dedicated to researching questions in fiscal, education and health policies. Vardishvili's work focuses on examining the influence of costly postsecondary education on access to education, productivity, innovation, and income inequality dynamics. On a separate research line, she studies policy measures to address the epidemic of chronic conditions in the United States. She studies policy measures to address the epidemic of chronic conditions in the United States.

Vardishvili completed her doctorate degree in economics from the European University Institute in Florence in 2021, Italy, a master's degree in quantitative economics from the University of Konstanz, Germany, and a bachelor's degree in economics from Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.