Kenneth (Ken) Dunn

Ken Dunn, Tepper School Professor of Financial Economics, Emeritus, has led highly successful careers in both the worlds of academia and finance, excelling as an investment management executive and helping to build and enhance the Tepper School during his tenure as its eighth dean. 

He is credited with spearheading the historic $55 million naming gift from his former student, David Tepper and wife Marlene, creating more endowed professorships, and launching degree programs at CMU’s Qatar campus. Under Dunn, the school enjoyed a marked increase in the quality of its students, in the importance placed on the impact of faculty research, and in external relations and fundraising.

Dunn earned his bachelor’s (1974) and master’s (1976) degrees from Ohio State University and his doctorate in industrial administration from Purdue University in 1979. Following graduation, he joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty and became a tenured professor of financial economics in 1987. He left in 1988 to join investment firm Miller Anderson, becoming partner in 1989. Following Morgan Stanley’s 1996 acquisition of the firm, he remained as managing director, and through his career, led areas that included mortgage-backed securities, fixed-income trading, technology, and insurance. In 2002, Dunn returned to the Tepper School as dean.

Among his honors, Dunn received the Tepper School 1982 Excellence in Teaching Award. In accepting the deanship, Dunn said that his experiences at Carnegie Mellon turned a "shy academic into a self-confident successful risk taker" and that he would "like to give something back to the school that gave me so much."