Meet ICEF’s Newly Recruited Academic

ICEF continues to hire faculty with graduate degrees (PhD) earned abroad. In September 2023, it will welcome Alexander Usvitsky, who holds his bachelor’s from ICEF (2013) and his PhD from the Florida State University (2020).

Alexander Usvitskiy did his PhD in Economics at the Florida State University (USA). In 2014-2018 he was engaged in research as the Evelyn R. and John W. Baugh Graduate Fellow in Economics. In 2017, Alexander received the Irvin and Peggy Sobel Award for outstanding achievement among graduate students admitted to PhD candidacy.

Alexander’s primary research interests lie in Experimental & Behavioral Economics, and Game Theory. He builds theoretical models and uses laboratory experiments to test hypotheses provided by formal modeling and behavioral approaches – a type of research acknowledged by numerous Nobel Prizes in Economics (1994, 2002, 2017). Specifically, Alexander explores the processes of human adaptation and behavioral dynamics in the context of information and experience acquisition, as well as in connection with recurrent changes in the settings, stochastic processes and other players’ actions.

In 2020 Alexander joined the School of Advanced Studies (SAS) at the University of Tyumen and has since been curating its Economics major. He is the founder and director of SAS Laboratory of Advanced Behavioural Studies (SAS/LABS). Apart from economic studies, Alexander has been working on research within interdisciplinary projects related to consciousness and artificial intelligence.

Alexander’s role at ICEF will include teaching MSc Financial Economics Microeconomics course component and Game Theory.