Jon C. Thompson will be soon graduating from the University of Oregon with a PhD in Economics and join Willamette University from Fall 2015. His research interests include applied econometrics generally and culture and growth more specifically, with a focus on the use of micro-founded models to explain intergenerational attitudes towards risk-taking and the ease with which people communicate across cultures. Some of this work emphasizes the role of geographic constraints as a causal factor in generating cultural differences for econometric analysis.