Economist named interim dean of Graduate School

Lynne Pepall, professor and chair of economics, has been appointed interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, effective September 1.

Lynne Pepall

Pepall, who studies industrial organization, has agreed to serve as interim dean for two years, said Robert Sternberg, dean of Arts & Sciences. “We very much look forward to welcoming Lynne to her new position and new set of responsibilities working further to develop the excellence of our graduate programs in Arts & Sciences,” Sternberg said.

Pepall succeeds Robin Kanarek, who has held the post since 2002 and will return to full-time teaching and research in the Department of Psychology. Kanarek “has served with distinction as dean of the Graduate School, and I want to thank her for her many outstanding contributions to graduate education at Tufts,” Sternberg said.

Born in Canada, Pepall earned her B.A. in economics and mathematics at the University of Toronto. After graduating, she was selected as a Commonwealth Scholar to attend the University of Cambridge in England, where she earned her Ph.D. in economics in 1983. Before coming to Tufts in 1987, Pepall was a research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and an assistant professor at Concordia University in Montreal. She was promoted to full professor at Tufts in 2003.

She was awarded a Jean Monet Fellowship at the European University in 1987 and received funding as a German Marshall Fellow in 1994-95. Her research in industrial organization explores issues in business strategy and the implications these have for market outcomes, social welfare and public policy. Her work has appeared in many journals, including the Economic Journal, Journal of Business, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy and Journal of Industrial Economics. She is also a co-author with two Tufts economics colleagues, Daniel Richards and George Norman, of a leading textbook, Industrial Organization: Contemporary Theory and Practice.