Carnegie Mellon University

Linda Argote and Chris Sleet

March 14, 2021

Tepper School Professors Linda Argote and Christopher Sleet Honored as 2021 Faculty Chair Recipients

Linda Argote, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty and Research, the recipient of the Thomas Lord Professorship in Organizational Behavior and Theory chair, and Christopher Sleet, Professor of Economics, recipient of the H.J. Heinz Professorship of Economics, were honored at the 2021 Faculty Chair reception on March 4, a virtual celebration attended by more than sixty university faculty, staff, and guests.

“You are both outstanding scholars and educators, and our community is so pleased to celebrate your achievements, together with your family, friends, and CMU colleagues,” said Farnam Jahanian, president of Carnegie Mellon University, during the honorary reception.

“Endowed professorships are among the highest academic honors that the university can bestow upon a member of our faculty,” noted Jim Garret, Provost and Chief Academic Officer of Carnegie Mellon, during his reception remarks.

“With their endowed professorships, our faculty recipients will have access to resources that can be used to expand their research endeavors, to continue to generate impactful work in their fields, and to strengthen our foundation in interdisciplinary education.”

The Thomas Lord Professorship in Organizational Behavior and Theory is one of seven Thomas Lord Professorships that were established in 1996 through the LORD Corporation and the estate of Thomas Lord. The purpose is to honor educators whose work profoundly impacts Carnegie Mellon University, their academic fields, and society.

Argote is a pioneer and influential scholar in the field of organizational learning. In fact, she is the most cited of all faculty at the Tepper School. She has over 37,000 citations according to Google Scholar, which makes her the most cited faculty member on all metrics.

“I am honored to receive a Thomas Lord Professorship and to join such a distinguished group of Lord professors at CMU that includes Jim Garrett and Dennis Epple,” Argote said during her remarks at the honorary reception. “I would like to acknowledge the important contributions of my coauthors and thank them for their collegiality on our collaborative journeys.”

The H.J. Heinz Professorship of Economics chair was established in 1977 by the Heinz family and the Howard Heinz Endowment (now the Heinz Endowments) to support an endowed professorship in the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, now known as the Tepper School of Business. The Heinz Endowments seeks to help the Pittsburgh region thrive as a whole and just community, and through that work, to model solutions to major national and global challenges.

Sleet is a leading expert in the study of macroeconomic policy. He has pushed the frontier on how we think about economic policy in environments where governments are limited on what they know, what they can do, and choose policies while thinking about their own re-election concerns.

“It’s a very great honor for me to receive the H.J. Heinz Chair in Economics,” Sleet said during his remarks at the honorary reception. “The Heinz Family Foundation and the Heinz Endowments have a deep and special relationship with Carnegie Mellon. They’ve long supported scholarship and research here and I’ve very grateful indeed that I am part of that.”

Isabelle Bajeux, Dean of the Tepper School, commended the faculty and their accomplishments.

“It is especially rewarding to recognize these two faculty members. Linda Argote and Christopher Sleet have not only made significant research contributions in their fields, but they are also outstanding educators and highly involved faculty members. It is my honor to recognize both of them."