Rate My Professor Natalia Smirnova

Natalia V. Smirnova is an Associate Professor In Residence in the Department of Economics at the University of Connecticut's Stamford campus, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Business & Economics. An alumna of UConn, she received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Connecticut in 2004, M.A. in Economics from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1994, Ph.D. in Statistics from St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance, Russia in 1990, and B.A. with Honors in Economics from St. Petersburg State Institute of Trade and Business, Russia in 1985. Her career encompasses academia, government, non-profits, and consultancy. Prior roles include Assistant Professor In Residence at UConn Stamford from 2018 to 2022; Founder and Principal of YouCount!, an economic and financial literacy consultancy, since 2017; Treasurer of the Eastern Economic Association since 2015; Director of Education and Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research from 2013 to 2017, where she managed educational programs and a $500,000 budget; Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Business and Economics at the College of Mount Saint Vincent from 2005 to 2012, founding the Center for International Studies funded by a $200,000 U.S. Department of Education grant; and Supervising Analyst in the Operations Research Unit of the New York City Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2005. Earlier positions involved teaching and research at UConn as a graduate student and in Russia.

Dr. Smirnova's research specializations include economic transition in Russia, new pedagogical approaches for classrooms with diverse student backgrounds, program evaluation, and economic education. Key publications feature 'Teaching Money and Inflation Across the Curriculum' in The Social Studies (2019), 'Economics Across the Curriculum: Impact on Knowledge Acquisition' in Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice (2017), 'The Missing Link: Experiential Learning' in Intuition, Trust, and Analytics (2017), 'Teaching Unemployment Across the Curriculum' in The Councilor (2017), and 'Economics Across the Curriculum: Integration of Economic Concepts into Various Disciplines' in Perspectives on Economic Education Research (2016). She has earned major awards such as the CLAS Broader Impacts, Service, and Visibility Award (2022), Grillo Family Excellence in Teaching Award (2021), Stamford Faculty Recognition Awards (2021 and 2023), Wal-Mart Teaching Excellence Award from ACBSP (2007), and Career Competency Innovation Award (2024). Additional honors include the Thomas E. Recchio Faculty Coordinator Award (2024) and Fulbright Specialist designation (2026-2029). She coordinates the Early College Experience Economics program, served as inaugural Faculty Fellow at UConn's Center for Career Development in 2023, and teaches courses like Intermediate Quantitative Macroeconomics, Public Economics, Money and Banking, Financial Economics, and Econometrics II, emphasizing real-world applications and data-driven learning.