The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business last week named Dr. Thomas Gilligan to serve as its next dean, concluding a nationwide search to find a successor for Dr. George Gau, who has served as McCombs’ dean for the past six years and concludes his appointment in August.
Gilligan, whose McCombs appointment begins on September 1st, has been the E. Morgan Stanley Chair in Business Administration and professor of finance and business economics at the University of Southern California (USC)’s Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles. He also served as the Marshall School’s interim dean from February 2006 to April 2007. McCombs’ search for a new dean was conducted by an 18-member committee led by Professor Michael Granof. According to Granof, the members of the committee were unanimous in their selection of Gilligan, with all agreeing that he possesses the scholarly credentials, administrative experience and charisma they would like to see in the dean of their business school.
“There is no question that the McCombs School of Business has the potential to be one of the truly top business schools in the world and Thomas Gilligan has the ability and skills to take us in that direction,” Granof said in a statement. In addition to the positions he has held at USC, Gilligan also has been a visiting professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. His areas of interest are microeconomics, applied price theory, industrial organization, antitrust economics and public choice. Prior to his academic appointments, Gilligan served as a Russian linguist in the United States Air Force for four years and was a staff economist on President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1982-1983. | 
