Rice trustee emeritus Ralph O’Connor donates $2.5M for endowed chair in economics

Professor Hülya Eraslan named to chair

Rice University Professor of Economics Hülya Eraslan has been named to the new Ralph S. O’Connor Chair in Economics created through a $2.5 million gift from trustee emeritus Ralph O’Connor.

Hülya Eraslan

The endowed chair will support Eraslan’s salary and academic needs, as well as fellowships and research projects in the Economics Department.

“Hülya Eraslan is an outstanding researcher and an excellent mentor of our graduate students,” said Antonio Merlo, Rice’s George A. Peterkin Professor of Economics, chair of the Economics Department and director of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics. “As a researcher, she combines economic theory, econometrics and data analysis to address substantively important questions. As the director of graduate studies in economics, she is helping our doctoral program achieve the prominence it deserves with extraordinary enthusiasm and tireless dedication. The Ralph S. O’Connor Chair in Economics is a fitting tribute to her stature in the economics profession and to her important contributions to the department, the school and the university.”

A Houston entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist, O’Connor is the founder and chief executive officer of the investment firm Ralph S. O’Connor & Associates. He has a B.A. in biology from Johns Hopkins University and completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He said he wanted to support the Department of Economics because of the discipline’s impact on his own life and career.

“In my freshman year at Hopkins, my economics professor, Dr. Evans, piqued my interest in business and economics,” O’Connor said. “What I learned has helped me through the years.”

Ralph O’Connor

A longtime supporter of Rice, O’Connor served as a term governor for the university from 1967 to 1976 and then as a trustee from 1976 to 1988. He returned as a trustee from 1994 until 1996. He and his wife, Becky, provided lead funding for the George R. Brown Tennis Center and also donated the owl sculpture by Geoffrey Dashwood that keeps a watchful eye in Hindman Garden on the Rice campus. He is an honorary member of the Association of Rice Alumni and has received the association’s highest honor, the Gold Medal. For his support of Rice athletics, the R Association gave him the Honorary “R” Award.

The first holder of the Ralph S. O’Connor Chair in Economics has been a member of the Rice faculty since 2014. Her research focuses on bargaining and voting with applications to political economy and corporate finance, both theoretically and empirically. She has a B.S. in computer engineering and information science from Bilkent University, an M.A. in economics from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota.

For more information on Rice’s Economics Department, visit http://economics.rice.edu/.