Brandeis Magazine

Lisa M. Lynch, a world-renowned economist, became interim president of Brandeis on July 1. She will serve in this role while a search is conducted for the university’s next president.

“I approach the opportunity of being interim president with great excitement and humility,” Lynch said in a letter she sent to the Brandeis community during her first morning on the job. “Not a day passes when I am not proud of or humbled by the accomplishments, values and character of our community.”

Lynch succeeds Frederick M. Lawrence, who served as the eighth president of Brandeis from 2011 to 2015.

The Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Lynch had been serving as university provost and senior vice president for academic affairs since October 2014. From 2008 to 2014, she was dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Lynch is one of the country’s best-known labor economists. She was chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor from 1995 to 1997, and chair of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 2007 to 2009.

Before coming to Brandeis in 2008, Lynch held faculty positions at Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Ohio State University and the University of Bristol. She received a BA in economics and political science from Wellesley College, and an MSc and PhD in economics from the London School of Economics.

Lynch says she will return to the role of provost after a permanent president assumes office. In the meantime, Irving R. Epstein has been named interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. The Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, Epstein has been a Brandeis faculty member since 1971. He served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs once before, from 1994 to 2001.

As interim president, Lynch is committed to maintaining the university’s upward trajectory. “Over the past few years, we — faculty, students, staff, graduates, trustees and donors — have come together to create a new momentum that is fueling the next phase of Brandeis’ growth and development,” she wrote in her July 1 letter.

“We all agree that this is not a time to stand still, and I know that with your help and support we will continue to move forward to advance the vitality and dynamism of Brandeis University.”