The Department would like to welcome four new PhD students to our community. They are as follows:

Roberto Bernasconi

Background:

Roberto holds a Master's in Economics from Bocconi University and has been working as a Research Analyst at the European Central Bank, having previously been at IGIER and the European Commission's DG ECFIN.

Research:

His research interests are in international economics, finance, and macro development, with a focus on using micro data to answer macro questions.

Supervisor:

He will be supervised by Dr Martina Kirchberger and Professor Agustin Benetrix.

Giuseppe Gurrado

Background:

Giuseppe holds an MSc in Economics and Social Science from Bocconi University. He was previously at the European Commission DG ECFIN and the Baffi Centre on Economics, Finance and Regulation. 

Research:

His research interests lie in monetary economics, using quantitative and empirical methods to study central banking, monetary and financial institutions and digital money.

Supervisor:

He will be supervised by Dr Maylis Avaro and Professor Davide Romelli. 

Andrin Pluess

Background:

Andrin completed his Master's at the University of Zurich, where he also worked as a Predoc for the past two years. During his Predoc he was working on various AI-related development projects in East and West Africa.

Research:

Broadly speaking, his research interests include everything at the intersection of AI and Economics.

Supervisor:

He will work on those topics under the supervision of Dr Vitaliia Yaremko and Dr Tara Mitchell.

Frank Wolfe

Background:

Frank completed the MSc in Economics in Trinity College Dublin in 2025. Since 2025 he has worked as a Research Analyst in Health and Quality of Life Research at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

Research: 

His main fields of research are in public economics and health economics, with a particular emphasis on how public policies affect people’s lives, livelihoods, and decisions as they age. He focuses on retirement institutions, such as pension systems and deferred payment schemes, both as important policy instruments and as laboratories for understanding individual and household behaviour. This also reflects a broader interest in economic and social inequality, and how public policy can address it.

Supervisor:

During his PhD in Trinity (2026-2030) I am co-supervised by Dr Barra Roantree and Professor Ronan Lyons.   

You can learn more about our PhD programme by visiting the webpage here.