****NEW***** (April 2019) I did an interview with Breaker Mag, which includes a good write-up of research into cryptocurrencies and exchange rates. ****NEW***** Upcoming Presentations
October, 2019, Pitzer College
Professional Summary I am a Lecturer at University of Chicago - Department of Economics and an honorary non-visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge - Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF). These positions accurately encapsulate my two interests: making economics less insular by making it accessible for non-PhD. economists, while pursuing a research agenda examining crypto-currencies (decentralized virtual currencies) and their impact on international economies.
According to Social Science Research Network, I am among the top 200 economic authors in the world (out of 27,361 ranked) gauged by research interest (paper downloads in past 12 months). My cryptocurrency research focuses on their use and implication as a globally traded alternative to national currencies or assets. This incorporates topics such as exchange rates, capital controls, and the global financial and monetary system (including Central Bank Digital Currency) especially in relation to the decentralization that comes from distributed ledger technology. I have been interviewed by various media outlets, including NPR, and have given both academic and non-academic talks. I teach both calculus and non-calculus based courses, including principles and intermediate level microeconomics and macroeconomics, as well as writing intensive upper-division courses in international trade and international macroeconomics. I have taught large lectures (over 300 students) and small classes (under 15 students), and have coordinated instructors and TA's across multiple principles of macroeconomics sections to create a uniform student learning experience (>1000 students, 4 instructors). I have received multiple teaching awards, and several of my undergraduate students have presented the results of their supervised research at undergraduate conferences, or won awards for their thesis.
I maintain an active, informal Twitter account (not affiliated with my employer) where I give opinions or thoughts about current academic research (usually economics research on cryptocurrency/DLT, but any research may catch my eye), teaching practices at the college/university level, academia in general, video games, board games, or any other wisps that catch my attention.
Other
"Pieters" is pronounced as "Peters".
Feel free to reach out with media or speaker requests: I consider public communication and education about economics and economic research an important part of my role as an academic. However! To protect my time I no longer agree to talk at events where my travel and accommodation is not compensated. Additionally, if people are required to buy tickets to attend you need to pay me an honorarium. Standard exemptions for academia and policy institutions apply. From October to December, 2019 I will be unable to accept any requests outside of Chicago Monday-Wednesday.
I am not interested in leaving academia for a corporate job (though some of your projects are very interesting!). Any consulting work would need to pass conflict-of-interest, not impact or restrict my research freedom, and be paid.
I am told I should provide BTC/ETH addresses to communicate that I am a "serious" crypto-academic. Here are my Coinbase wallets. Yes, that information is 100% a litmus test for gate-keeping/elitist reactions:
BTC address: 1GaAzQa6YzgT5AxM1h38JgDxdcbXLTF6hp
ETH address: 0x180dcf7954e6fbbaA6331Bf088568EFC0f06832A