Laura D’Andrea Tyson, renowned economist at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, has been named the school’s interim dean as of July 1, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ announced today.
Tyson joined the Berkeley Economics Department in 1977 and the Haas faculty in 1990. She was the dean of the Haas School from 1998 to 2001. She also served as dean of London Business School from 2002 until 2006. She has graciously agreed to serve as interim dean at Berkeley Haas while the chancellor’s office continues to work on recruiting a permanent dean. The chancellor’s office hopes to have a new dean named and in place this fall.
“We are so fortunate that somebody as able and uniquely qualified for this role as Professor Tyson is willing to step in and help the school during this leadership transition,” said Chancellor Christ. “When Laura was dean of Berkeley Haas, she initiated many important programs that laid the foundation for the school’s financial and reputational strengths today. Haas couldn’t be in better hands.”
Tyson succeeds Professor Richard K. Lyons, who has served as the Haas School dean for 11 years. Lyons will to return to his full-time faculty position at Haas next year following a well-deserved sabbatical.
“The Berkeley Haas community recognizes and appreciates the enormous contributions that Dean Lyons has made during his deanship,” said Tyson. “I am honored by the opportunity to serve our community during the transition to the new dean.”
Currently, Tyson is a Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School and serves as the faculty director of the Haas School’s Institute for Business and Social Impact, which she launched in 2013. The Institute houses the Centers for Responsible Business (CRB), Social Sector Leadership (CSSL), and Equity, Gender & Leadership (EGaL); the Global Social Venture Competition, BOOST and B-BAY. Tyson also chairs the Board of Trustees at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley.
Tyson is an influential scholar of economics and public policy and an expert on trade and competitiveness. She served as Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1993 to 1995 and as Director of the White House National Economic Council from 1995 to 1996. She was the first woman to serve in these two positions.
Tyson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She serves on three corporate boards and as an advisor to or member of several advisory boards for nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
Tyson has devoted some of her policy attention to the links between women’s rights and national economic performance. At the World Economic Forum (WEF), she is the co-chair of the Global Future Council on Education, Gender and Work and is a Stewardship Board member of the System Initiative on Education, Gender and Work. She is the co-author of the WEF Annual Global Gender Gap Report, which ranks nations on economic, political, education, and health gender gaps. She is also the co-author of Leave No One Behind, a report for the United Nation’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment (2016).
Much of Tyson’s recent research focuses on the effects of automation on the future of work. She is the co-organizer of WITS (Work and Intelligent Tools and System), an interdisciplinary faculty group created to explore the impacts of digital technologies and artificial intelligence on working, earning, and learning.