Young Alumni: David Byrne embarks on new adventure down under
2011-01-11 16:27:32
By Melissa Lombard
David Byrne (’04) made his first trip to Mount Allison when he was 11 to watch Mounties Football — making two to three trips to watch his favourite team each Fall after that with his father. In 2000 he chose to attend Mount Allison and graduated with an Honours Commerce degree in economics. After completing his Master’s and PhD in economics at Queen’s, he headed to Australia in September with his wife Marisia to start his “first real job” as an assistant professor at the University of Melbourne.
After defending his PhD thesis in December on the causes and consequences of mergers in the Canadian cable television industry, he is now officially Dr. Byrne.
“It was a pretty big day after spending the last 10 years studying," he says.
He has completed his first semester in Melbourne and will be busy with research, seminars, and conference travel until July, when he begins teaching.
Byrne says when he came to Mount Allison he thought he would eventually have a career in business, possibly finance, and was also considering becoming a golf club professional, which requires a Commerce degree. During his time at the University he spent two summers as a volunteer junior golf instructor at the Sackville Golf Club, and played varsity golf, football, and badminton.
After taking economics courses in his second year, becoming a research assistant for Dr. Stephen Law, and running weekly economics tutorials for first-year students, he found a love for academic research and teaching.
“My degree from Mount A, along with two full summers of research and becoming a teaching assistant in economics, Commerce, and math really prepared me for the transition to graduate school and still pays dividends in my career today,” he says.
The biggest change for him in Australia, besides always being asked about his Canadian accent, is the drastic jump in responsibility.
“I’ve immediately switched from being full-time consumption to full-time production in the academic world. The pressure is definitely heightened to get published and PhD students have already come to me looking for guidance for their research projects.”
Byrne says he really enjoys teaching and coming up with new ways to help his students understand concepts and see how basic economic principles apply in real life.
“There’s immediate satisfaction with teaching, when you’re able to clarify concepts and convey new ideas to students,” he says.
A self-proclaimed data nerd, research may just be his favourite part of the job. He spends his days collecting and analyzing data, trying to uncover interesting patterns or see whether predictions from economic theory are exhibited in the data.
A Truro, NS native, Byrne says he is glad he and his wife chose Australia over other opportunities in Canada and the U.S.
“Definitely no regrets,” he says. "We love it here."