Dirk Mateer is a Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Economics in the Movies, Essentials of Economics, and Principles of Economics. Dirk has been featured in the "Great Teachers in Economics" series and he was also the inaugural winner of the Economic Communicator Contest. While he was at Penn State, he received the George W. Atherton Award, the university’s highest teaching award, and was voted the best overall teacher in the Smeal College of Business. While at the University of Arizona, he received the best large class lecture award in the Eller College of Management and the University’s Koffler Teaching Prize, a quadrennial award for his contributions in economic education. He received the Kenneth Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southern Economic Association in 2021.