The 2012 Eugene Havas Prize for best overall performance in the MPhil in Development Studies has been awarded to Julien Gagnon.

Julien is a Rhodes scholar whose research insterests include development economics, networks and identity economics and microfinance. As part of his research on housing microfinance, he conducted seven weeks fieldwork in the city of Bamako, Mali.

In October he will start doctoral studies in economics at the University of Cambridge on a Gates Scholarship. He intends to use the tools of microeconomics (notably network economics, institutional economics and identity economics) in the building of a theoretical model applied to the study of the construction of information networks and their implications for sociological and institutional change, notably in terms of social norms and identity.