Three Women Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Chairs

Marina Halac, an expert in game theory, contract theory, and mechanism design, has been appointed the Stanley Resor (B.A. 1901) Professor of Economics at Yale University. Dr. Halac joined the Yale faculty in 2018, after holding faculty positions at Columbia Business School and the University of Warwick in England. Her research focuses on understanding how incentives are shaped by contracting constraints and the information environment.

Professor Halac is a graduate of the Universidad del CEMA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She earned her Ph.D. in economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jessica Ridgway Clayton was named to a Carol Avery Professorship at the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University. Carol Avery was a professor emerita of the department of clothing, textiles, and merchandising at the university, where she served as department head from 1979 to 1995. Professor Ridgway Clayton is an international award-winning creative and functional design scholar whose research includes exploring user-centered design approaches to improve the lives of new mothers and their babies, specifically those requiring care in neonatal intensive care units.

Dr. Ridgway Clayton holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in textiles and apparel management, all from the University of Missouri.

Elinor K. Karlsson, associate professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, has been appointed the Dr. Eileen L. Berman and Stanley I. Berman Foundation Chair in Biomedical Research. Dr. Karlsson is a recognized leader and pioneer in the field of comparative genomics and evolutionary biology in both humans and dogs. She joined the faculty at the medical school in 2014.

Dr. Karlsson received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and cell biology and a bachelor of fine arts degree from Rice University in Houston. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.