With great sadness, the Department of Economics communicates the death of Professor Mayra Addison, who died of a brain aneurysm on August 2nd.
Prof. Addison provided incredible support to the department. She was involved in our graduate programs since 2012 both as a faculty member and as a member of the advisory board. She taught IEDM 522 - Development Aspects of Energy and Environment. Prof. Addison was also a full-time faculty at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX.
Prior to teaching, Prof. Addison advised multilateral investment agencies, government and private utilities on a vast range of issues from overall sector restructuring strategies to specific technical, operational, regulatory, contractual, and transactional aspects. With solid knowledge of the economic, social and cultural framework of Latin America and some countries in Africa, Prof. Addison conducted several transactions involving the introduction of the private sector to traditionally state-owned electricity and other infrastructure systems. The projects, most of them funded by multilateral organizations entailed assisting governments to generate strategies for private sector development in the energy and other sectors, analyzing performance data to identify potential for investment or divestiture, creating the enabling regulatory framework to stimulate investment, improving tariff setting methodologies, strengthening the capacity of government institutions and developing a sustainable implementation strategy. Some of the projects involved establishing strategic partnerships with business leaders, non-governmental organizations, foundations and donors. As a manager of these projects Prof. Addison was required to use sound judgment and communicate effectively with clients when advising on structuring concession contracts, capital investment structures, joint-venture agreements, valuation, asset assessment, tariff adjustment issues and base price of companies being sold in competitive bids. Prior to teaching, Prof. Addison worked at Stone & Webster as an Associate Director, at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as an Investment officer and at Coopers & Lybrand L.L.P as a Senior Consultant. Prof. Addison received her MBA form the University of California at Berkeley, Walter A. Haas School of Business and her industrial engineering degree from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ingeniería.
With many professional accomplishments, Prof. Addison was above all, a kind and generous human being, always looking for ways to help people who came in contact with her: faculty, students, staff.
Prof. Addison’s memorial service will take place on Friday, August 13, 2021, at 12:00 PM, at the Church of the Little Flower, located at 5607 Massachusetts Ave., Bethesda, MD 20816. Her obituary can be found here. Condolences can be sent to: Daniel Addison, 1200 Post Oak Blvd, Apt. 2504, Houston, TX, 77056.