“My mom was a teacher. Her mom was a teacher. My mom’s dad was also a teacher,” Dean says. “It was something to work hard towards and enjoy, and so my mom really was able to instill, like, a love of math in me.”
Dean, Eckerd’s new assistant professor of economics, combines her expertise in mathematics and economics with a passion for innovative research. Though this is her first faculty position, her work already shows the promise of contributing significantly to the field and to her students.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in both mathematics and economics at the University of Arizona, where she discovered her passion for economics. “I fell in love with econ and how it could change your way of thinking about the world,” she says. She went on to earn her master’s degree and Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science at George Mason University—finishing her doctorate in 2024.
“It was kind of a whirlwind for my last semester in grad school because I defended my dissertation in March, I got married in April, I graduated in May, and then I moved down here to start at Eckerd at the end of June,” she explains.