Susan K. Feigenbaum '74, P '08, P '17
Chair, Board of Fellows (ex-officio)
Elected May 2022
Susan Feigenbaum, Ph.D., is the Practice Administrator at the Pepose Vision Institute as well as the Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus & Founders' Professor in Economics at the University of Missouri St. Louis. Previously, Feigenbaum was an associate professor of economics at Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Public Choice Center at George Mason University, a Robert Wood Johnson fellow in health care finance, and chief of methodology for the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission.
Feigenbaum received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Wisconsin Madison and spent a year of graduate study as an Earhart Fellow in the Department of Economics at UCLA. She has written extensively on private versus public provision of goods and services, focusing on a diverse set of industries, including water utilities, charity (income redistribution), and health care. Feigenbaum has also contributed significantly to the literature on the economics of scientific inquiry, examining the incentives that result in scientific replication, error, and fraud. She has been the recipient of several National Science Foundation grants for both research and curriculum development. Feigenbaum has received numerous honors and awards, including the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Teaching; the St. Louis Chanel Woman of Influence Award and the UMSL Trailblazer Award. Currently, Feigenbaum and Professor Rik Hafer are co-authors of a new, innovative introductory economics textbook, Economics: The Way We Live (2010, Freeman-Worth Publishers).
Dr. Feigenbaum received her B.A. from Brandeis in 1974, studying Economics and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.