Young Talent
One of our core missions is to train future economists. To this end, we are committed to equipping our students with rigorous methodological training that fosters fact-based, critical thinking. We are proud to see that, once again this year, several of them have been awarded prestigious recognitions
for their outstanding work. Our heartfelt congratulations to all the winners!
Hui Zhang was awarded the 2025 SDG Impact and Engagement Award from the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics at the Master’s level for her thesis “Seeding Interventions to Increase Participation in Voluntary Environmental Programs.”
Her work forms part of a larger research project conducted in collaboration with ETH Zurich and the University of Cambridge. The project aims to combat deforestation through fostering agroforestry
in cocoa plantations. The field experiment was carried out in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where cocoa
farming has been responsible for approximately 50% of deforestation over the past two decades.
Dr. phil. Niklas Bürgi was awarded the 2025 Annual Prize of Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics for his dissertation “Am I Thinking What You Are Thinking? – A Neurocomputational Account of Adaptive Mentalization and Its Application in Autism.”
In his thesis, Niklas Bürgi explores the human ability to put oneself in another’s position and to predict their behavior. Using the game rock, paper, scissors, mathematical models, and brain activity measurements, he demonstrates that people adapt their strategies flexibly. He finds that some brain activities are noticeably slower in certain regions among people with autism. His work contributes to a deeper understanding of interpersonal interaction and helps to identify potential difficulties at an earlier stage.