At the IMF, Hoang Huu Da, 34, tracks global economic developments, including how U.S. tariff policy and ongoing wars affect inflation and growth, and helps IMF economists develop fiscal and monetary policy recommendations for member countries. He also processes data and builds econometric models to test research hypotheses for the agency's experts.
Before his IMF posting, Da spent nearly a decade in risk management at Vietnamese banks, holding only a bachelor's degree. He received his UCSB admission and full scholarship offer last month.
"I'm very excited, because this is a great opportunity to train myself in how to face risk," Da said.
Da graduated from the Faculty of Mathematical Economics at the National Economics University in Hanoi. As a student, he found the program a natural fit because it combined his favorite subject, mathematics, with probability and statistics, economics and programming. Outside class, he spent hours on knowledge-sharing websites and free online courses.
After graduating in 2014, he entered banking as a risk management specialist. The work matched his training: he gained access to large datasets and advanced statistical and econometric methods, building risk-forecasting models across industries.
