Professional Staff
Clopper Almon
Clopper Almon is the founder of Inforum, which he began at the University of Maryland soon after leaving Harvard in 1966. Dr. Almon has been a pioneer in developing macroeconomic and interindustry models, as well as software for econometric analysis and model building. His latest book, The Craft of Economic Modeling, teaches model building through hands-on experience with his econometric software package, called G7. Dr. Almon has pushed strongly through the years to make Inforum truly an international organization, forging links with other organizations in many countries who have become Inforum partners. He has designed and written a software package called Interdyme, which provides an object-oriented environment for the development of interindustry models. Clopper retired from full-time teaching in 2003 and now is Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department at the University of Maryland.
Douglas Meade
Doug is the Executive Director of Inforum and is responsible for business development and strategy as well as being the principal investigator on many projects. He returned to Inforum in May 2006 after serving three years as Deputy Chief of the Industry Division at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Before working for BEA, Doug contributed significantly to the development of the Lift, Iliad, and DEPPS models of the U.S. and the Jidea model for Japan. He has served as principal investigator on a wide variety of projects for private sector and government clients. He has nearly 30 years of experience with economic modeling and data development and has held positions at Data Resources Inc. and the Bureau of Census. Doug received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.
Ronald Horst
Ron is the Director of Research at Inforum. Ron started with Inforum in 2001 as a Research Assistant and joined the full-time staff after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 2006. He directs research activities including model development and application of these models to policy analysis and forecasting. Ron leads production of semiannual macroeconomic-industry forecasts and monthly macroeconomic forecasts. He serves as the principal investigator for projects including analysis of the exhibition industry and provision of specialized industry forecasts. His expertise includes the economics of public infrastructure; freight flow projections; energy economics; projections of detailed industry data; and analysis of terroristic attacks and other economic impacts. Ron also has been the chief software developer at Inforum since the retirement of Clopper Almon in 2003.
Troy Wittek
Troy is a Senior Economist at Inforum. Troy received his B.A. degree from the University of Maryland in 2007 and a master's degree in Applied Information Technology from Towson University in 2012; he will complete an MBA at the University of Baltimore in 2020. He joined Inforum in 2006 and became a full-time Research Assistant in 2009. Troy’s responsibilities include collecting and analyzing statistical data for use in policy analysis, business planning, and academic research. He has helped to write and edit reports for a variety of audiences in the academic, government, and private sectors. He works with the Department of Defense to project defense purchases and skilled labor requirements by industry and by region using Inforum economic models. Other projects include providing detailed short-term forecasts for the banking industry, analyzing the impact of new investment in Asia, and quantifying the economic footprint of domestic industries using IMPLAN.
Trinity Wade
Trinity joined Inforum as a Research Analyst in 2017. She collects and processes economic data, contributes to client presentations and reports, and assists in writing business proposals. She also helps to maintain the Inforum models and to produce forecast materials. Trinity helps to produce quarterly short-term forecasts for the plastics industry, including assembly of historical economic data, projections of key industry indicators, and commentary. She contributes to annual economic analysis of the exhibition industry, joining economic developments to industry performance in attendance, exhibitor participation, and revenues. Additional responsibilities include working with undergraduate interns to test and develop materials for macro and IO modeling courses. Trinity holds a bachelor’s degree in Business & Economics from the University of Kentucky.
Douglas Nyhus
Doug develops and maintains the international interindustry models and the bilateral trade system linking countries into a world forecasting system. Doug performs many analyses with the international/bilateral trade system. He has supported impact analyses by U.S. government agencies for studies of the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Indian economies. He has many years of experience working with international models and data, and he has been instrumental in developing the Inforum international network of researchers. Doug retired from full-time duties in 2013 but continues to work on model development, health care, and other projects. Doug has a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.
Margaret McCarthy
Margaret first joined Inforum in 1970 as a Faculty Research Assistant in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. More recently, her principal responsibilities were in the operation, application, and maintenance of LIFT, Inforum's interindustry-macroeconomic model of the United States. Other work at Inforum included production and presentation of the group's economic outlook at conferences of subscribers. She worked frequently on research projects involving applications of input-output models and data. She also was been in charge of Inforum's production of updated input-output tables for the United States. Margaret led Inforum's assistance to the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Margaret retired from full-time duties in 2007.
Undergraduate Students
Shreya Thakur
Shreya is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is pursuing a B.S. in Economics with a minor in Mathematics and Computer Science. Shreya joined Inforum as a Research Assistant in April 2019. After graduation, she plans to pursue an MBA.
Inforum Ph.D. Graduates
From its beginning in 1967, Inforum has worked with many scholars from the University of Maryland, other academic institutions from the U.S and abroad, and elsewhere. We list some of the University of Maryland graduate students who completed their dissertaions while working with us.