Five Northwestern students on Tuesday won the national finals of the College Fed Challenge, a competition that promotes education about the U.S. economy, monetary policy-making and the role of the Federal Reserve System.

Weinberg senior Geoffrey Bery, McCormick sophomore Nikhil Byanna, Weinberg senior David Chen, Weinberg sophomore Jonathan Cohen, Weinberg senior Eric Zhang and their faculty adviser Mark Witte represented the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in the ninth annual competition, according to a news release.

The finals were held in the board room at the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. During the competition, undergraduate students analyzed and created monetary policy suggestions in a model of the Federal Open Market committee. Teams initially competed within specific bank districts and top teams moved on to the final challenge in nation’s capital.

“Fed Challenge offers students an exceptional opportunity to learn about the economy and monetary policy,” said Federal Reserve Board member Elizabeth Duke, one of the judges for this year’s competition, in the release. “I hope the experience heightened their interest in continuing to study economics. I congratulate all of the participants for producing presentations that demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of global economic events.”

Other judges included Krishna Guha, executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Robert Barsky, senior economist and research adviser for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. 

Bentley University came in second place and American University, Pace University and Lafayette College won honorable mentions.

Correction: A previous version of this story did not list the fifth student on NU’s team. His name has been added. The Daily regrets the error.

— Paulina Firozi