People

People

Staff members

Professor Alex Kemp

Professor in Economics
Petroleum Economics, Carbon Capture & Storage

Professor Gerhard Kling

Internet of things (IoT), Energy use

Professor Catia Montagna

Professor in Economics
International Trade Investments & Environmental Economics

Professor Euan Phimister

Professor in Economics
Agricultural & Energy Economics, Energy Poverty

Professor Frans de Vries

Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics

Environmental Economics, Resource and Energy Economics, Environmental Policy and Technological Change

Dr Yakubu Abdul-Salam

Lecturer in Economics
Oil and Gas Economics, Financial Modelling, Decommissioning

Dr Takahiko Kiso

Lecturer in Economics
Energy & Environmental Economics, Energy Efficiency & Demand

Dr Aatishya Mohanty

Aatishya Mohanty is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Aberdeen Business School. Her research interests lie at the intersection of development and cultural economics. Some of her recent works focus on the effect of culture on health outcomes.

Aatishya joined the University of Aberdeen in 2023. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics and a M.Sc. in Applied Economics from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Dr Eva Pocher

Shortly after the completion of my Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Aberdeen in 2011, I joined the Employment Research Institute (ERI) at the Edinburgh Napier University as Research Assistant and subsequently worked as a Research Associate in the EU & Welsh Government project “Women Adding Value to the Economy” (WAVE) at the Cardiff University. From 2016 to 2021, I was employed as Lecturer in Economics at the University of Glasgow, teaching and coordinating courses at both undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA level. I also led the development of new courses and programmes, and acting as Undergraduate Convenor for year 1, 2 and 3 in Economics and as Undergraduate Assessment officer in Economics. In 2022, I joined the University of Aberdeen Business School as Lecturer in Economics teaching Macroeconomic Courses such as Labour Market Economics and Global Economy. Furthermore, I am the convenor for International student exchange.

My research interest is based in Labour Economics, International labour migration and Gender Pay Gaps.

Dr Shashika Rathnayaka Mudiyanselage

Agricultural Economics, Applied Economics, Econometrics

Dr Agathe Rouaix

Lecturer in Economics
Experimental Economics, Environmental & Energy Economics

Dr Prachi Singh

Lecturer in Economics
 

Dr Nikolaos Vlassis

Lecturer in Economics
Environmental Economics, International Trade, Public Economics

Honorary research fellows

Dr Theo Acheampong

Dr Theophilus Acheampong is an economist and political risk analyst with over ten year’s knowledge and experience working with private investors, governments and international organisations on the intersections between natural resource extraction and public financial management. His areas of specialisation include energy policy formulation, fiscal regime design and modelling, investment analysis, petroleum accounting, contractual negotiations, local content, public finance, and trade and investment promotion. Theo’s political risk experience involves helping private and public sector clients navigate complex political, business and sovereign risks in Sub-Saharan Africa. This includes producing forward-looking risk forecasts and intelligence reports covering economic (sovereign risk, fiscal and monetary policy), legal (expropriation, contract risks) and operational risks (corruption, regulatory burden). Theo has a PhD in Economics (specialisation in petroleum economics and taxation) and an MSc in Petroleum, Energy Economics and Finance from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He has a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Theo is an Associate Lecturer at The Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), University of Dundee. He is also an Associate Lecturer and Honorary Research Fellow at the Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy Economics and Finance (ACREEF), University of Aberdeen. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at Ghanaian Think Tank IMANI Centre for Policy and Education. He is quoted in international media such as the BBC, Bloomberg, AFP, CNBC, and has published in leading academic journals. Theo is currently co-editing the Palgrave MacMillan book project titled “Petroleum Resource Management in Africa: Lessons from Ghana”, which examines the challenges and opportunities from ten years of oil and gas production in Ghana.

Dr Xin Jin

Xin is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the  Xi’An Jiotong – Liverpool University (XJTLU) in China. She obtained her PhD in Economics in 2013 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Prior to joining XJTLU, she was with University of Aberdeen in Scotland in Europe's oil capital, Aberdeen. Xin’s research interests are economics of natural resources and economic development. She has studied crude oil prices dynamics, commodity markets, and is currently working on the relationship between natural resource dependence and economic structural transformation (i.e. industrialisation/deindustrialisation).

Dr Marc Gronwald

Marc is a Senior Associate Professor in Economics at the Xi’An Jiotong – Liverpool University (XJTLU) in China. He obtained a diploma (master equivalent) degree in Economics from the University of Bielefeld, and his PhD in Economics from the University of Hamburg. Prior to his appointment at IBSS, Marc held appointments as Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Aberdeen, and as Economist at the ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich. Marc is member (fellow) of the CESifo Research Network and Research Associate of the ifo Center for Energy, Climate and Exhaustible Resources. Marc’s current research focuses on empirical analyses of commodity and financial markets, in particular crude oil markets, emissions trading schemes such as the EU ETS, and markets for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. He is particularly interested in large price movements, and he attempts to understand whether or not these movements can be explained by market fundamentals. Recently, Marc also began working in the area of climate econometrics. In addition to these specific research areas, Marc has a general interest in economics of climate change, energy transition, and evaluation of environmental economic policies.

David Reading

David Reading is an international petroleum economist and a senior honorary research fellow at Aberdeen University. He began his career in government as an economic statistician, later becoming involved in the University of Aberdeen’s oil and gas research programme under the leadership of Professor Kemp. For the past twenty-five years he has been a commercial consultant, most recently with AE Energy Consulting Ltd. Over the course of his career he has delivered projects on international oil and gas taxation and petroleum economics to companies and governments around the world. These have included Governments in Australia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tanzania and Zanzibar, Nigeria, Lebanon, Angola, Ghana and Greenland.

Ele Idakwo

Ele (Elena) Idakwo is a senior petroleum economist and an honorary lecturer with the University of Aberdeen. She teaches on the International Petroleum Economics module, which is a part of Portfolio Optimisation, and has worked with the Business school on an online Petroleum Economics and Policy module, which contributes to the certificate in Energy Economics and Finance. She is a senior economist at AE Energy Consulting Ltd and has led the petroleum revenue forecasting team for over 10 years, working on petroleum fiscal systems around the world. This has included projects in various countries including Nigeria, Angola and Lebanon. Her academic background is mathematics and she has an MSc in Oil and Gas Enterprise Management (2007).

Birgit Maasing

Birgit teaches International Petroleum Taxation as part of Portfolio Optimisation course in OGEM. During the course students learn about petroleum economics and fiscal instruments applied in petroleum taxation.

Birgit is an Economist at AE Energy Economics. She has MSC in Petroleum, Energy Economics and Finance from University of Aberdeen. Birgit has worked on projects related to macroeconomics and debt sustainability in Angola and is currently researching and developing content for Oil Wealth Management.

PhD students

Current PhD students
Name Research Area Degree Classification Date Supervisors
Jesus Arturo Regalado Ruiz de Chavez   PhD Economics 1/4/20 - 30/9/23

Prof A. Kemp

Dr Yakubu Abdul - Salam

Gopnauth Gossai Designing petroleum fiscal terms in a volatile price environment PhD Economics 1/9/18 - 31/8/21

Prof A. Kemp

Dr N. Vlassis

Omowande Yoloye Designing Petroleum Fiscal Terms in a Volatile Price Environment PhD Economics 9/1/18 - 8/1/21

Prof A. Kemp

Dr N. Vlassis

Hongjie Zhao The relationship between crude oil prices, oil exploration and development and crude oil supply. PhD Economics 1/6/19 - 31/5/22

Dr Chunxia Jiang

Prof A. Kemp

Shehroz Azmat Using social media and Google search data to forecast crude oil prices using sentiment analysis and knowledge discovery PhD Economics 1/9/18 - 31/8/24

Dr Filipa Da Silva Fernandes

Prof Angela Black

Paul Goetz   PhD Economics 1/9/20 - 31/8/23

Prof E. Phimster

Dr J. Cai

 

Former PhD students
Name Research Area Degree Classification Date Supervisors
Abdul Ganiyu Iddrisu Gender, energy poverty and health outcomes in developing countries PhD Economics 1/9/19 - 31/8/23

Prof E. Phimster

Dr A. Zangelidis

Lianghzhi Dai Health insurance and female labour supply in agriculture PhD Economics 1/9/12-31/8/23

Prof E. Phimster

Dr H. Battu

Olatunji Abdul Shobande Energy use and environment impacts in Nigeria: Does the quality of life matter?  PhD Economics 1/2/19 - 31/1/22

Dr T. Kiso

Prof I. Theodossiou

Karimu Suale Monetary policy PhD Economics 1/11/16 - 30/4/21

Prof C. Montagna

Dr A. Zangelidis

Martin Pertab The impact of oil prices on real exchange rates and other key macroeconomic variables of leading oil producing countries in the caribbean and latin america PhD Economics 1/9/18 - 31/8/22

Dr X. Jin

Prof C. Montagna

Esti Tri Widyastuti Understanding the relationship between crude oil markets and other financial markets PhD Economics 1/9/17 - 30/5/22

Dr N. Vlassis

Dr H. Suenaga (Curtin)

Sania Wadud Essays on financialisation of commodity markets PhD Economics 1/9/18 - 28/2/22

Dr S. Lee

Dr R. Durand (Curtin)

Despina Yiakoumi Energy market design: Agent based modelling and experimental economics PhD Economics 1/9/14 - 16/1/20

Prof E. Phimster

Dr A. Rouaix

Alfiya Wright Third Party Access in carbon capture and storage PhD Economics 1/10/13 - 1/11/18

Prof E. Phimster

Prof A. Kemp

Rohitha Abayasekara Bio fuels PhD Economics 1/10/11 - 12/4/16

Prof E. Phimster

Dr A. Zangelidis

Theophilus Acheampong The Economics of Safety PhD Economics 1/10/12 - 24/5/17

Prof A. Kemp

Prof E. Phimster

Luis Loria Rebolledo Economic impact of assessment of emerging low carbon vehicle technologies PhD Economics 1/10/14 - 17/9/18

Dr T. Kiso/ Dr Verity Watson

Prof E. Phimster

Farah Roslan Renewable energy and growth in ASEAN.  The role of renewable electricity generation as growth driver in the economy PhD Economics 1/9/15 - 11/12/19

Prof L. Theodossiou

Dr T. Kiso

Pietropaolo Vanin Debt as intergenerational political conflict: theory and evidence.  PhD Economics 1/9/14 - 2/10/18

Prof C. Montagna

Prof K. Bender

Daniel Kopasker The effects of economic insecurity on health and wellbeing PhD Economics 1/9/13 - 4/5/17

Prof C. Montagna

Prof K. Bender

Ernesto Gove Junior Debt and Finance in Mozambique PhD Economics 1/9/16 - 31/8/19

Prof E. Phimster

Prof C.Montagna

Avanti Pinto The impact of regional environmental agreements on international trade and environmental quality PhD Economics 1/10/14 - 30/9/18

Dr N. Vlassis

Prof C. Montagna

Haidy Amer The impact of increasing the use of renewable energy sources on economic growth and environment in Egypt: Wind Energy Case Study PhD Economics 1/9/14 - 31/8/20

Dr M. Gronwald

Dr M. Wersing