Young scholars

Marcos Falcone is a Research Fellow at Fundación Libertad and an Associate Professor of political science at Universidad del CEMA. His essays on the history and theory of liberalism have received awards from the Mont Pelerin Society, Caminos de la Libertad, the European Center for Austrian Economics Foundation and the Ayn Rand Institute, among others. He was the host of the Téngase Presente and Cuatro Siglos de Liberalismo podcasts and writes frequently for Argentine and American media outlets. In the past, he has worked at McKinsey, the Deutscher Bundestag, as well as several Argentine and American universities. He holds an MA in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.

Glenn Furton is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the College of Business at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He completed his postdoctoral research under the supervision of the Foundations of the Market Economy Program and the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University. He earned his B.S. in Business with a minor in Economics from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Texas Tech University, where he was a graduate research fellow at the Free Market Institute.

Michael Lachanski is a computational social scientist and demographer. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Population Studies Center, where he investigates the dynamics of educational and occupational systems using both causal inference and classical demographic methods. He is pursuing an MA in Statistics and Data Science at the Wharton School, further refining his expertise in big data analytics and reproducible research. He holds an A.B. in Economics and MPA. His dissertation revisits the history of schooling in the U.S. He was an IES Fellow from 2021 to 2023 and the first demographer selected as a Visiting PhD/Dissertation Fellow at the Mercatus Center.

In 2016, she earned a Ph.D. in Economics with Cum Laude distinction from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, where she also completed a Master’s in Austrian Economics. She is a Frédéric Bastiat Fellow from the Mercatus Center of George Mason University and has been a visiting scholar at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. Currently, she is a professor and Coordinator of Introduction to Economics at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where she leads the course redesign to promote an interdisciplinary approach centered on the individual. Her research focuses on the role of institutions, economic education, and education policy. She has actively promoted spaces for debate on free markets and has led the organization of Semana de la Libertad (Freedom Week), an event that, over seven editions, has inspired young people to explore the principles of liberty and human progress.

Daniel is the Chief Operations Officer and a researcher at the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Economía Política (IEEP) and a permanent contributor to public debate through his writing. He holds a law degree from Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo. He is the founder of Librería Antígona, a bookstore dedicated to promoting liberty literature in Ecuador. He is currently working on the Galápagos Libre project, conducting a law and economics study on regulatory challenges in the Galápagos Islands. Daniel will also be presenting his paper, Controlled Comptrollers, which analyzes Ecuador’s five-branch system and its impact on checks and balances.

Vincent Miozzi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Florida Southern College and a faculty fellow at the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. He earned his Ph.D. and masters degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics at Texas Tech University, where he also served as a Research Assistant at the Free Market Institute. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Economics at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Vincent is originally from Solon, Ohio—just outside of Cleveland.

Professor Mkrtchian teaches courses in research methods, comparative politics, international relations, American politics, developing states, and Eastern European politics. His research focuses on comparative politics, international relations, political economy, democracy, and the European Union.

Chandler S. Reilly is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Metropolitan State University of Denver, specializing in applied microeconomics and political economy. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University in 2023. His research examines the economic effects of public policy in a variety of areas with a focus on the Department of Defense. Topics include the economic effects of military base redevelopment, the role of bureaucratic institutions in shaping university-performed R&D, the relationship between institutions and recycling, and the economic effects of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. In the classroom, Dr. Reilly has taught a diverse array of undergraduate and MBA courses, including mathematical economics, econometrics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, economic history, and environmental economics.

Born and raised in Brazil, I embarked on my academic journey at Insper, where I later volunteered as a professor after founding a think tank. This think tank, among its various objectives, critically addressed the lack of entrepreneurship in modern economic curricula. My four years of teaching at Insper solidified my passion for being in the classroom, a realization that ultimately led me to leave the financial industry. My career began at Goldman Sachs, where I worked in equity research and sales, gaining invaluable insight into market trends and corporate structures. I went on to establish a Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) firm, managing over $400 million in assets. However, my true passion for teaching drew me back to academia, and in 2022, I joined the PhD program at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) to pursue my goal of becoming a scholar and advancing entrepreneurship education.

Ethan Yang is a Legal Associate at the Cato Institute and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also the head of Students for Liberty’s Bastiat House for Politics, Policy, and Law. His research interests include antitrust law, foreign affairs, tech policy and American constitutional law. He is the coauthor of the book The China Dilemma: Rethinking US-China Relations Through Public Choice Theory. Prior to Cato, he was a law clerk at the US Senate Judiciary Committee, the Federal Trade Commission, and was a Google Public Policy Fellow. Ethan obtained his Juris Doctorate from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and his Bachelors degree from Trinity College – Hartford.