Meet...Claude Lopez

Story by Holly Holmes, A&S Journalism Intern

“UC has given me opportunities I’d never have anywhere else. The department has been so supportive. People go out of their way to help you here, and as a beginning professor, you need advice.” So says Claude Lopez, assistant professor of economics. Coming from the south of France, she may have had a more challenging adjustment than most, but you wouldn’t know it from all that she’s accomplished since arriving here two years ago.

One of her most significant contributions is serving as head of the Econ Society, which offers both educational and social opportunities for members. Thanks to the generous support of Caroline and James C. Kautz, who created the Hewett-Kautz fund, the group has traveled to places like New York and Washington D.C. to study economic issues and institutions and meet with leaders in the field. Lopez hopes that students will continue to have the opportunity to visit economic centers around the world, and she especially looks forward to taking a group to Europe.

She also worked with Debashis Pal to gain Faculty Development Grants and resources from the Taft Research Fund. Their goal has been to set up a series of mini-lectures by internationally prominent researchers in order to bring fresh ideas and thinkers to their students and colleagues.

Lopez earned her BS and MS in econometrics at the University of Toulouse I. She came to the United States to work on a PhD in economics and graduated from the University of Houston in 2003. She recently published articles in the

Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking

and the

Review of International Economics

. Her fields of expertise are time series econometrics, empirical international finance, and macroeconomics.