The William A. Mcconagha Prize

Established by Margaret McConagha Faulkner and Alan C. McConagha in memory of their father, William A. McConagha, an economics professor at Lawrence University in Appleton from 1926 to 1956, this award recognizes the student who demonstrates the greatest excellence in the study of economics. Irene Yank (Franklin, Wisconsin) is an Economics major with minors in Data Science and Mathematics. She has developed superior and versatile quantitative skills, which she has deployed to win the Lawrence Datathon and to create an unreasonably effective Excel-based Wordle-guessing tool. She also further developed her summer LURF renewable-energy analysis into a prize-winning paper. Irene is a tireless tutor for the Economics department, assisting with nearly every course the department offers. In her spare time, she runs with the fast crowd on the Lawrence Track & Field team-running, hurdling, and triple-jumping her way through the winter and spring seasons.