Austin Smidt
M.Phil. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School, and Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND
Expertise
Austin Smidt (he/him) is an M.Phil. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy researcher at RAND. His research interests include water economics, infrastructure sustainability and resilience, climate change, economic development, labor economics, game theory and mechanism design.
Prior to joining RAND, he was a consultant on the Planning and Infrastructure Economics team at KPMG Australia, focusing on rail, water, and community housing projects and policy evaluations. Previous research projects Austin has worked on include the welfare benefits of age dependent unemployment insurance in Australia and applications of game theory and mechanism design to the education sector. He has a bachelor's of advanced finance and economics from the University of Queensland.
Education
B.S. in advanced finance and economics (honours), University of Queensland