The Canadian Studies Program is proud to announce that our undergraduate fellow Haikun Liu has been selected to receive a national research award by the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS). The Martin Lubin Undergraduate Award in the Social Sciences, which Haikun will receive, recognizes outstanding research by an undergraduate student. His paper, Altruism of Aid: Analysis of Canadian Official Development Assistance (ODA), seeks to evaluate whether Canadian foreign development aid to Africa is motivated by altruism or self-interest.
Haikun is a senior at UC Berkeley, studying economics, data science, and politics. He is interested in economic development, economic history, and the role of foreign aid in developing countries. His paper previously won the 2023 Rita Ross Prize from Berkeley's Canadian Studies Program, which has supported his continuing research on this topic. Haikun received a Canadian Studies Undergraduate Research Fellowship during Summer 2023, which enabled him to visit federal archives in Ottawa to analyze the use of altruistic language in official Canadian foreign aid documents.
Haikun will receive the Lubin Award next week at the 26th Biennial ACSUS Conference in Washington, DC. He will also present his paper as part of a panel focused on trade and economics policy. On November 28, he will return to Berkeley to officially receive his Ross Prize at the start of our regular colloquium. We hope you will join us in congratulating Haikun for his achievement!