As many of you will have heard by now, we suffered the tragic loss of our University of Chicago graduate student colleague, Yiran Fan. The life of Yiran Fan tragically came to an end on Saturday due to another, far too frequent, act of senseless violence. Yiran was a very special person. In fact, my spouse Grace Tsiang and I have known him since his time as a research professional at the Fama-Miller Center. Even then, his contribution to research projects was special, going well beyond what is expected of research professionals. Moreover, he was an absolute joy for me to know and work with. I was glad to write letters for him to the top PhD programs, and I was pleased that he chose to join the Joint Financial Economics PhD Program.
Right from the start, Yiran established himself as a remarkable PhD student. He won the Lee Prize from the economics department for being a top performing student in macroeconomics core curriculum. My colleagues and I have been pleased to have him as teaching assistant. Indeed, he always showed a deep commitment to help his fellow graduate students learn. As many of you know, he has been an invaluable intellectual resource to our economics and finance community. He was well on his way to writing an exceptional dissertation using the tools and insights from corporate finance theory and economic dynamics to study the productive role for the oversight of financial institutions and markets. Yiran has been an active participant in the graduate student working group in macroeconomics and finance. In fact, this year he was made the student leader of this working group. Not only did he share his own research insights, but he often provided perceptive comments on the work of others.
I often remark that I count our best graduate students as among my very best colleagues on campus. Yiran certainly qualified as a superb colleague as well as wonderful person. Grace and I will personally miss him greatly, and I suspect that many of you will as well.
In the coming days, we will look for ways to recognize Yiran Fan as a colleague and a friend.
In partnership with the Fan family, The University of Chicago is establishing a fund in memory of Yiran to support students in the joint program of Chicago Booth and the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics. To contribute, you may call 773-702-7747 or donate online via this link (Booth) or give.uchicago.edu/ssdmemorial (Economics)
While the University is committed to assisting the family of Yiran Fan at this difficult time, we understand the desire of the community to support the bereaved family directly by gifts. Here are the community-giving links:
China residents (RMB donation): https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HYACI3i-vgl9x198mSx_zg
US residents (USD donation): https://www.gofundme.com/f/yiran-fan-memorial
View University of Chicago Obituary
惊闻我们的同事范轶然博士研究生不幸罹难，我的内心无比悲痛。正如你们所知，范轶然是一位卓尔不凡的学术研究者。事实上，早在他刚来到法玛-米勒研究中心（Fama-Miller Center）担任研究员时，我和我的夫人Grace Tsiang就已经结识了他。当时，他就为我们的研究项目做出了非同寻常的贡献，远远超出了研究中心对于一位研究员的要求。此外，和他共事也是一件非常愉快的事情，所以我很乐意为他申请顶尖的博士项目撰写推荐信，而且很荣幸他选择加入了我们的金融经济学联合博士项目。
从那以后，范轶然就成为了我们之中一名杰出的博士生。凭借他在宏观经济学核心课程的突出表现，他获得了经济学系的Lee Prize奖学金。我和我的同事都非常欢迎他担任我们的助教，因为他永远都能够出色地帮助他的研究生同学。他为我们的经济和金融学界提供了无价的思考和智慧。他正在撰写一篇非常优秀的毕业论文，利用公司金融的工具和理论以及动态经济学去研究监管金融机构及市场的生产性作用。范轶然在我们的宏观经济学和金融学研究小组中表现得非常活跃。其实，他今年刚刚成为这个学习小组的学生领导。他不仅仅将自己的研究心得主动地分享给大家，而且经常为其他同学的研究提供建设性意见。
我经常说，我把我们最优秀的研究生，当做我最好的同事。范轶然，毫无疑问正是这样一位杰出的同事。Grace和我都非常地怀念他，相信你们也和我有着同样的感受。在接下来的日子里，我们将一道去缅怀范轶然，这位同事和朋友。也请联系我或者Grace。
拉尔斯·彼得·汉森（Lars Peter Hansen）