"You have to keep your ears open to hear what the Faculty and students are thinking," he explained.

Biography

Throughout his professional career Spence has distinguished himself by the depth and breadth of his accomplishments.

He was born in Montclair, N.J. and grew up in Toronto, where his father was a university professor. He played varsity hockey and majored in philosophy at Princeton, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1964, picking up the honors thesis prize on the way out.

For the next three years, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he received a master's degree in mathematics. From England, he received to Harvard, where he was a teaching fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, studied economics, and won the Wells Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in 1972.

For the next three years, he was an associate professor of economics at Stanford before returning to Harvard in 1975. He was tenured in 1977, and the next year he won the Galbraith Award as best teacher in the Economics Department.

In 1981, Spence won the John Clark Bates Medal, which is awarded biannually to the best economist in the nation under 40. He is best known for his work on industrial behavior and developing industries.

Last June, he began a three-year term as chairman of the Economics Department.

Spence lives in Cambridge, is married, and has two children