UQ student to attend Nobel meeting

Nicholas Rohde was thrilled when The University of Queensland nominated him for The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. But to be selected has simply blown him away.

UQ PhD student, Mr Rohde, is one of the two Australians chosen to attend the Nobel Laureate Meeting for Economics in Lindau for 2008.

He is one of the 300 attendants selected from a pool of 20,000 applications open to young people under the age of 35.

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings provide a globally recognised forum for the exchange of knowledge between Nobel Laureates and young researchers.

More than 300 of the worldwide best young economists will meet 14 Laureates in Economic Sciences from August 20 to August 24.

There will also be an opportunity to meet Nobel Laureate John Forbes Nash, portrayed in the 2001 Academy Award-winning film, A Beautiful Mind.

"The selection procedure is very competitive as of the 300 students and young researchers selected, around half are drawn from either Germany, Austria, Sweden or Switzerland, so the rest of the world competes for 150 odd places," Mr Rohde said.

His PhD, which he expects to complete by mid 2009, concerns developing statistics for the measurement of poverty and inequality.

"I think my work stood out because it is theoretical and quite heavily mathematical. Most PhD students in economics tend to focus on using existing tools to analyse real world problems. My work focuses on creating new methods for this type of analysis," he said.

Mr Rohde is looking forward to being able to participate in round table discussions at the meeting and hopes to gain an insight into how the Nobel Laureates view and solve complex problems.

"It would obviously be incredible if I got the opportunity to discuss my own work with a Nobel Laureate,� he said.

Mr Rohde, who leaves on August 16 for the meeting, completed a dual degree in Bachelors of Commerce and Economics at UQ and graduated with 1st class Honours in econometrics in 2005

"I am both excited and nervous, but also very busy. I am required to study the work of all the 14 participating Nobel prize winners before the meeting to ensure that I am in a position to understand their lectures and discuss their research," he said.

Mr Rhode aspires to do statistics and econometric modeling at the World Bank in Washington one day.

More than 25,000 young researchers have attended the Lindau Meeting since 1951.

The other Australian selected is Sephorah Mangin from the University of Melbourne

Media: Nicholas Rohde telephone 042229 7225 or Charu Agarwal at UQ Communications 3365 2339