Colm OMuircheartaigh, a longtime professor at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, has been appointed the schools next dean, University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum announced today.
An applied statistician and senior fellow in the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), where he served as vice president for statistics and methodology from 1998 to 2004, OMuircheartaigh takes the leadership role as the Harris School is poised for new growth.
"Situated within a university that has the finest collection of social science scholars anywhere in the world, the Harris School is well positioned to contribute powerfully to the direction of public policy studies across the globe," Zimmer said.
"Colms rigorous approach to scholarship, commitment to education and deep knowledge of the Harris School will serve him well as dean," Rosenbaum said. "President Zimmer and I look forward to welcoming him to the academic leadership of the University."
OMuircheartaigh will be joined by Dan Black, professor at the Harris School and a senior fellow at NORC, who has been chosen as Deputy Dean. OMuircheartaighs term will begin July 1.
"The Harris School epitomizes the University in society," OMuircheartaigh said. "The school embraces the Universitys tradition of rigorous interdisciplinary scholarship and looks outward to understand how public policy shapes peoples lives. Leading the Harris School is a great honor, and I am delighted to serve as dean."
OMuircheartaigh is principal investigator on the National Science Foundations Internet Panel Recruitment Study, co-principal investigator on the National Social Life Health and Aging Project, and a leader in national and international organizations of statisticians.
He previously served on the faculty of the London School of Economics and Political Science and was the first director of the LSEs Methodology Institute. He completed his undergraduate work at University College Dublin and received his M.S. and Ph.D. in statistics from the LSE.
"At the Harris School, teaching is at the core of our being," OMuircheartaigh said. "A question raised in class can encourage us to re-examine something we thought we knew all along. This is a great place to bring together teaching, theory and application."
Blacks interests lie in labor economics and applied econometrics. He currently serves as the principal investigator for NORCs 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
Before joining the Harris School in 2007, he was on faculty at the University of Kentucky and Syracuse University. Black holds a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Kansas and an M.S. and Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University.
"The Harris School is rich in academic tradition, rooted in outstanding contributions that the University of Chicago has made in the social sciences, with world-class scholars who have changed the way people view public policy," said Black. "I am excited to help guide our continued growth in those areas."
OMuircheartaigh succeeds Susan Mayer, who announced last year that she would be stepping down after serving as dean since 2002. Black will be taking over as Deputy Dean from Charles Glaser, the Emmett Dedmon Professor of Public Policy, who has held the position of Deputy Dean since 1998.
The Harris School was founded in 1988 with a mission to understand and influence public policies through its research, through educating future leaders and agents of social change, and through its role as a liaison between the academys research in public policy and practitioners in the field.
The Harris Schools faculty currently includes 34 full-time, 13 adjunct and visiting, and three emeriti members. Approximately 300 students pursue academic programs in a wide range of policy areas including child and family, politics and governance, international, public finance, health and education.