YingHua He (何 英华) passed away on July 2, 2024 after a courageous battle with cancer. YingHua received his PhD from Columbia Economics in 2011 under the supervision of Bentley MacLeod, Bernard Salanie, and Pierre Andre Chiappori. He was a co-author of Yeon-Koo Che and Dong Woo Hahm (another Columbia graduate) and a friend to many affiliated with our department. His loss is devastating to our profession and, in particular, to the Columbia community.

YingHua’s PhD dissertation was among the first to bring empirical perspectives to bear on matching and market design theory. Then, along with his co-authors, Yinghua pioneered the development of empirical frameworks to estimate both student and college preferences in school choice, alleviate congestion in college admissions, study costly information acquisition and mistakes with inattention in school choice, and improve kidney exchange. After teaching at the Toulouse School of Economics, he served as an Associate Professor (with tenure) at Rice University at the time of his passing; his career was blossoming, with several recent top publications and prominent conference appearances. Not only was he a brilliant and creative scholar, but he was also a kind, gentle, and generous friend to all who had a chance to cross paths with him. Columbia remained his endearing home throughout his academic career, where he visited frequently to reconnect and share his latest endeavors and wisdom with many of our faculty and students. YingHua will be deeply missed by all of us.