Patrick Collard, a University of South Florida (USF) alumnus, who graduated with a
bachelor’s of science degree in quantitative economics and a bachelor’s of arts degree
in mathematics, was recentlyawarded from The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a $90,000 graduateschoolfellowship for outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants
in the United States. Collard is among 30 New Americans selected from a pool of over
1,800 applicants.
Although Collard was born in the United States, he spent the majority of his childhood
and adolescence in Guerrero, Mexico. During the great recession Collard’s mother was
one of many individuals who found themselves suddenly without work. Shortly after,
the Mexican government scaled up the war on drugs and violence and crime erupted.Fleeing
this violence, Collard and his father moved to the United States in 2013 when he was
15 years old. The contrast between Mexico and the U.S. was stark and sparked Patrick’s
early interest in development economics.
During Collard’s time at USF, he was able to dive into economics and found its theorical
framework useful to better understand the economic and social disparities he witnessed
firsthand. Taking graduate level courses, heserved as a research assistant in the
economics department, and later became the project manager, coordinating 20 researchassistants.Collard
also spent a summer of his senior year as an economic research intern at the Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago.
“USF shaped my career and my personallife in great ways. The training that I obtained
from the Economics and Mathematics department, along with the friendships I obtained,
will be things that I'll always be grateful for," he says of his college experience.
Since graduating, Collard has worked as a pre-doctoral research fellow with Economist
Amy Finkelstein at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While working
on health economics projects at MIT, hebecameincreasingly aware of the flaws of the
American healthcare systemandhopes to investigate ways to improve access and quality
of care for individuals with particularly complex backgrounds. Collardwill obtain
a PhD in economics and hopes to contribute to society’s understanding of poverty and
the policies in and outside of the U.S.that shape lives like his own.
In addition to the Soros fellowship, Collard was also recently awarded the National
Science Foundation'sGraduate Research Fellowship, which recognizes and supports outstanding
graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based
master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S.institutions.
CAS Chronicles
