Danny Turkson
Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC
Teaching & Mentoring
I have been teaching economics, statistics, and research methods continuously since 2015 — across three institutions and two countries, at undergraduate and graduate levels, in classrooms ranging from 30 to 250 students, delivered in both in-person and fully virtual formats.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Instructor of Record
- ECON 101: Introduction to Economics (5×: Summer 2023, Fall 2023, Summer 2024, Summer 2025, Summer 2026). Sole instructor. Average enrollment ~30 students/section. Designed all lectures, assignments, and exams. Sample Syllabus (PDF)
Teaching Assistant
| Course | Term |
|---|---|
| ECON 470: Econometrics | Spring 2025 |
| ECON 440: Analysis of Public Finance | Fall 2024 |
| ECON 410: Intermediate Microeconomics | Fall 2022, Spring 2026 |
| ECON 101: Introduction to Economics | Spring 2023 |
Student Evaluation Highlights
Scale: 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Scores shown for four semesters as instructor of record.
| Dimension | Sum. '23 | Fall '23 | Sum. '24 | Sum. '25 | Best |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Treated students with respect | 4.71 | 4.48 | 4.82 | 4.78 | |
| Challenged me to think deeply | 4.67 | 4.26 | 4.36 | 4.63 | |
| I learned a great deal | 4.38 | 4.10 | 4.25 | 4.59 | |
| Instructor encouraged participation | 4.45 | 4.37 | 4.40 | 4.51 | |
| Overall course was excellent | 4.04 | 3.52 | 4.18 | 4.22 |
Selected Student Comments
On Clarity and Effectiveness of Teaching
“He is an excellent lecturer, and breaks down concepts very effectively.” — Summer 2025
“The good thing about Mr. Turkson is that he explains concepts to people like it’s the first time.” — Summer 2023
“He was very kind and explained everything very well. Moved at a good pace and set students up for success.” — Summer 2025
On Student Support and Availability
“He was always available to answer questions and really cares about the students in his class by helping create study plans and assisting with making questions make sense conceptually.” — Fall 2023
“Professor Turkson was a great instructor and answered every question a student had. He ensures all students are understanding the subject material, and goes above and beyond to provide resources and clear instructions.” — Summer 2023
“Mr. Turkson was always open to questions in/out of class; he also helped me become more confident with this course through study strategies.” — Summer 2025
On Genuine Care and Student Engagement
“He set a fun and welcoming environment for us to learn the material and ask questions anytime we wanted.” — Fall 2023
“He answered my questions, and I could tell when he was explaining something to me, he wasn’t just reading off a manual — he genuinely wanted me to understand what I was asking about.” — Summer 2025
On Real-World Connection and Deep Learning
“When I wanted to dive deeper into the topics at hand, Mr. Turkson was there to help me. The best thing was he knew how to address my conceptions because he was able to identify the angle that I was looking at it from and corrected it for me.” — Summer 2023
“Explaining the poll questions after we answered them helped me to correct wrong methods but also explain why I did something wrong — helping me learn altogether.” — Summer 2025
On Course Design and Resources
“We had a multitude of resources to study from depending on our own learning style — the textbook, the homework, the PowerPoints, the lecture videos, the practice questions, the recitation sheets. For those that did not understand the content, it is certainly not due to a lack of resources.” — Summer 2025
“I like that he made his edited slides available on Canvas for review because we could compare our notes to his and ensure we had all the formulas written down and graphs drawn accurately.” — Summer 2024
UNC Greensboro
- Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics. 2019–2021. Assisted with ECON 201: Principles of Microeconomics. Instruction shifted fully to Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
University of Ghana
- Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics. 2015–2016. Led tutorial sessions for 150–250 undergraduate students in Elements of Economics. Conducted weekly Stata training and research methods workshops for final-year undergraduates.
- Teaching Assistant, MA in Economic Policy Management. 2018–2019. Tutored ~30 graduate students in Microeconomics theory and applied econometrics.
- Teaching Assistant, Applied Statistics & Mathematics. 2018–2019. Tutorial sections for ~200 undergraduate students covering probability, statistical inference, and linear algebra.
Pedagogical Training
- ECON 805 — Seminar in Teaching Methods in Economics, UNC Chapel Hill
- ECON 806 — Advanced Seminar in Teaching Methods (independent sections), UNC Chapel Hill
- Teaching Associate Certificate — UNC Greensboro
Courses Ready to Teach
Undergraduate: Microeconomics, Econometrics, Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, Health Economics, Development Economics, and Public Finance.
Graduate: Econometrics, Applied Microeconometrics, Labor Economics, Health Economics, and Development Economics.
New course I could develop: Economics of the Family and Child Development — covering structural models of household behavior, intergenerational mobility, and policy evaluation with applications to fragile families in the US and developing economies.