Kerwin Charles, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, has been named new dean of the Yale School of Management. He will assume his new position July 1.
Charles succeeds Edward Snyder, who steps down after eight years at the SOM helm this summer.
“I am confident that Professor Charles, a renowned economist and award-winning educator, will advance SOM’s role as a global center for the study of business and prepare our students for the challenges and opportunities of a complex interconnected world,” said Yale President Peter Salovey in announcing the appointment.
During his academic career, Charles has studied and published on topics including wealth inequality, conspicuous consumption, race and gender labor market discrimination, the intergenerational transmission of economic status, worker and family adjustment to job loss and health shocks and the labor market consequences of housing bubbles and sectoral change.
A member of the National Bureau of Economic Research since 2002 and winner of multiple teaching awards, Charles is regarded as a leading scholar in labor economics and applied microeconomics. He is an elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economics, serves on the boards of NORC and of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and is a member of the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Labor Economics and the international editorial board of Industrial and Labor Relations Review.
After earning his Ph.D. from Cornell, Charles joined the University of Michigan as a faculty member in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics. In 2005, he moved to the University of Chicago and its Harris School.
When Charles assumes the deanship July 1, Snyder will return to full-time teaching and research at the School of Management.
In a November interview with the Yale Daily News, Snyder said that the school has become “stronger and strategically positioned” under his leadership. During his tenure, Snyder said he successfully increased alumni engagement, connected the school with the wider Yale community and expanded the entrepreneurship curriculum, master’s-level programs and non-degree programs.
