Catherine Eckel, Ph.D.
Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics and Political Economy
Catherine Eckel is Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences. Previously she was Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech, where she directed the Virginia Tech behavioral research lab, the Laboratory for the Study of Human Thought and Action. As one of four University Advance Professors, she helped implement an NSF-funded program to advance women in science and engineering careers at Virginia Tech. In 2002, she was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study). She was Economics Program Director at the National Science Foundation (1996-98), and was a visiting scholar at the Economic Science Laboratory at the University of Arizona (1994-95). Her Ph.D. is from the University of Virginia.
Dr. Eckel is past-President of the Southern Economic Association. She was Vice President of the Southern Economic Association 2002-2003, North American Vice President of the Economic Science Association 2000-2004, and has served on the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession of the American Economic Association and executive boards of the Southern Economic Association and the Economic Science Association. Dr. Eckel is co-editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, associate editor of the Southern Economic Journal and Experimental Economics, and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Regulatory Economics, Journal of Socio-Economics and Journal of Economic Psychology. In addition to her position as Program Director, she also has served on NSF review panels for the Human and Social Dynamics, IGERT, the Advance Program, and Decision, Risk and Management Science programs.
Eckel's research is in the area of experimental economics and concerns the effect of social interaction on economic exchange. Her work is interdisciplinary, and incorporates concepts from psychology and sociology into economic research. She has published more than 50 papers in journals in economics and other fields. Recent projects include: the effect of subsidies on charitable giving, measuring preferences (risk attitudes, patience, and pro-social orientation) using incentivized tasks, and discrimination by race and gender in games of trust. She also co-directs an ongoing teaching technology project developing interactive exercises for active learning in large classes via system of wireless handheld computers. This project has earned her two university-level teaching awards. Research projects are supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Aspen Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.