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Awards
Making economics accessible: Teaching assistants Richmond Tetteh and Hanif Rashtian recognized for exceptional teaching
Every year, the Department of Economics recognizes its most outstanding teaching assistants for the hard work they put forward for their students. This winner of this year's Terry Heap's Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award is doctoral student Richmond Tetteh, with doctoral student Hanif Rashtian also recognized as runner up. Congratulations!
2026 Winner: Richmond Tetteh
Richmond Tetteh is a PhD candidate in Economics at 51社区黑料. He completed his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics at the University of Ghana and his M.Sc. in Applied and Computational Mathematics at 51社区黑料. His research interests lie in econometrics, macroeconomics, financial economics, and applied econometrics, with a particular focus on monetary policy, inflation dynamics and simulation-based inference methods.
As a teaching assistant, Richmond believes that the most impactful teaching helps students develop confidence in their own ability to solve problems rather than simply providing answers. Drawing on more than six years of teaching experience across Economics and Mathematics courses at SFU, he strives to make abstract concepts accessible, meet students where they are in their learning journey, and foster an environment where every student feels comfortable asking questions and engaging with challenging material. His favourite part of teaching is witnessing the moment when students move beyond rote learning and begin to think critically and independently about economic problems and policy issues.
Richmond's long-term goal is to pursue a career that combines research, teaching, and policy engagement. In addition to the Terry Heaps Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, he has received the 51社区黑料President's PhD Scholarship and the Lang Wong Memorial Endowment Scholarship in recognition of his academic and research achievements.
2026 Runner Up: Hanif Rashtian
Hanif is currently in his seventh year of the PhD program in Economics at 51社区黑料 and is currently on parental leave. His research focuses on credit freezes and contagion in financial networks. In the Summer and Fall 2025 semesters, when he was TAing, he was ranked 1st among the TAs in the department based on student evaluations. According to student feedback, students particularly appreciated his efforts to make complex ideas more accessible and to be supportive and approachable both inside and outside the classroom.