01/29/2007

Geof Becker

Contact: Geof Becker
412-268-3486
gbecker@andrew.cmu.edu

Tepper School Names Nobel Laureate to Distinguished Chair

Finn Kydland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2004.

PITTSBURGH—The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University today announced that it has received $5 million from Richard P. and Virginia M. Simmons to establish the Richard P. Simmons Distinguished Professorship. The first person appointed to the Richard P. Simmons chair is Finn E. Kydland, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2004.
   
Simmons, retired chairman of Allegheny Technologies Inc., is a devoted philanthropist and distinguished adjunct professor at the Tepper School, where he teaches a popular graduate course, "Responsibilities and Perspectives of the CEO."
   
"I've always admired Carnegie Mellon and am particularly impressed with Dean Kenneth Dunn and the students at the Tepper School," Simmons said. "And I wanted to make a contribution that I thought would help make a difference in the school's continuing quest for excellence."
   
Kydland, who earned his doctor's degree in economics from Carnegie Mellon in 1973, received the Nobel Prize in conjunction with Edward Prescott, who also earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon (1967). Prescott served as Kydland's doctoral faculty advisor. They are the fifth and sixth members of the Tepper School faculty to have won Nobel prizes.
   
"I have strong views about what a great place the Tepper School is and the potential here for great work," Kydland said. "This chair is a great honor and quite essential to helping me make a contribution. I want to focus almost exclusively on basic research and helping to train great researchers."
   
The Richard P. Simmons chair is among eight chairs endowed at the Tepper School this academic year, part of Dunn's strategy to continue to emphasize path-breaking research at the Tepper School that enriches education and advances business practice worldwide.
   
"Dick Simmons has been a long-time friend and supporter of the Tepper School and of Carnegie Mellon," Dunn said. "His generous gift will help us retain the talents of Kydland and continue to cultivate great ideas and research in our students and Ph.D. candidates."