Tawni Hunt Ferrarini

Tawni Hunt Ferrarini, Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, is the Robert W. Plaster Professor of Economic Education at the Lindenwood University. She also serves as the Associate Professor of the Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise. Prior to arriving at Lindenwood University, was the Sam M. Cohodas Professor at Northern Michigan University (NMU), directing the Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship. In 2015 the National Association of Economic Educators elected her president. Her innovative teaching methods, relevant research, and professional service are dedicated to illustrating how growth and prosperity stem from the actions and interactions of responsible and accountable individuals.

Ferrarini also serves as a faculty scholar for the Council on Economic Education (Japan), and Mackinac Center for Public Policy (Michigan). Her reputation as a dynamic and engaging speaker on economic topics brings her around the globe and into unusual places. She is widely known for exciting a wide variety of audiences about how sound economic reasoning helps people take firm steps toward leading personally rewarding and secure lives.

Ferrarini's accolades are numerous. Some include: the 2016 Upper Peninsula Economic Development Alliance Nonprofit Award, 2012 Council on Economic Education’s Albert Beekhuis Center Award, 2010 Michigan Council on Economic Education Educator’s Award, 2009 National Association of Economic Educator's Abbejean Kehler Technology Award (inaugural recipient), and a distinguished faculty member at NMU in 2009.

In addition to publishing in journals, she has co-authored Economic Episodes in American History (2019) and Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know about Wealth and Prosperity (2016, St. Martin’s Press). She earned her doctorate from Washington University, where she studied under the 1993 Nobel laureate Douglass C. North, and has a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale.