Ahmet Ozkardas

Q: Where did you go to school?
A: I started my education at Galatasaray University in Istanbul. After I learned French, for my first year of undergrad studies, I went to Strasbourg, France and studied Economics and Management at the University of Strasbourg I, Louis Pasteur. When I choose Econometrics as my major, I transferred to the University of Lyon II Lumiere, France. For my master degree, I was accepted for a double degree program and I finish Master in Economics at the University of Lyon II and Master in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Napoli Federico II, Italy. I started my PhD in 2011 at the University of Paris I Sorbonne and finished it in 2015

Q: What area of study in economics do you specialize in?
A: Mainly I am specialized in Game Theory, more precisely Bargaining Theory applied to Labor Economics. Now, I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Water Institute and working on Game Theory applied to Water and Environmental Economics.

Q: What research are you currently working on?
A: I have participated to the project called “Payments for Wetlands Ecosystem Services in Urbanized Watersheds” at the Water Institute in May 2020. Now, I am working on modelling the payment system to incentivize the landowners to protect the watersheds from urbanization in the Southern Ontario.

Q: Why economics? What is your favourite thing about it?
A: To be honest, while I was at high school, I never dreamed myself studying economics. I always wanted to be a microbiologist who spend hours in lab and try to discover something “important”. However, my family and all my friends advised me to study social sciences because they were thinking that I cannot survive without “talking” but just dealing with cells under a microscope. I listened their advice and started studying economics. For the first couple years, I did not like it but when I was at my 4th year, I recognize that I am following a correct path. Especially for someone who loves politics and who tries to understand the core concept of the “modern social life”, I find economics is the best area I can spend years and years. When I looked back, I am always saying myself that I made a correct decision.

Q: How long have you been teaching at uWaterloo? What classes do you teach?
A: I have started working at uWaterloo in Fall 2017, since then, I have never stopped teaching, even in all three terms. My first course at uWaterloo was ECON102 – Introduction to Macroeconomics however for the last 6 terms, I am always teaching microeconomics at different levels, such as ECON101, ECON 201, ECON290, ECON391, and ECON392. I love teaching all of these courses and as long as it is microeconomics, it is always great.

Q: Do you have any special or interesting talents?
A: I wish I can say that I am very good at sports or good at playing a musical instrument but unfortunately I am not. But I love spending time in kitchen and everyone around me says that I am really talented in cooking and baking. Also I love sewing which is my hobby since my childhood. For instance, I sew face masks to all my friends during COVID period and they look really professional:)

Q: Any piece of advice you would like to give to current economics students?
A: Be patient. You might experience what I experienced. Even if economics doesn’t seem really interesting to you at the beginning, with enough patience, it will be soon. For me, economics was like “surprise eggs”. It looked like an ordinary boring egg but when I went deeper, I reached the chocolate first – which is really delicious, then I found the toy inside which is priceless.

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