Professor Daniel Vincent Becomes Chair of the Department of Economics
In his 28th year at the University of Maryland, Department of Economics (ECON) Professor Daniel Vincent took over as chair of the department on July 1, 2026.
“I felt it was time for me to take on both the honor and the challenge,” Vincent said.
Professor Andrew Sweeting held the role for four years before handing over the reins.
“I believe Dan has the experience and knowledge to be an outstanding chair of the department,” Sweeting said. “He is an excellent teacher at all levels, and has a deep commitment to our undergraduate and graduate students. His research interests have also given him experience of how economics is used in the real world, which is important as the department adapts to changes that are happening in the labor market.”
Sweeting added that he is confident that Vincent will help the department through what they both see as one of its greatest challenges: Adding faculty and Ph.D. students to the department during a time when more are needed, but budgets are limited.
“It will be difficult to do in this era of budget constraints, but I think we have a pretty strong case that these are needs that have to be met,” Vincent said. “Our undergraduate enrollment is up quite a bit, and I think it speaks to the recognition of the students that economics is a really valuable undergraduate degree.”
Also working in the department’s favor, Vincent said, is the people of ECON.
“The department is highly recognized as a very strong public university economics department, and it’s a very collegial department that works well together. The people are public-spirited, motivated, and they’re very strong researchers,” he said.
Vincent’s research expertise lies in applying game theory—the study of strategic decision making—to auction-based scenarios.
“Most of what I do as an academic researcher is to try to come up with designs of auctions that are intended to achieve particular goals,” Vincent said. “A real-world application of that that has been very prominent in the last 20 years has been the spectrum auctions of the Federal Communications Commission, in which the government has sold the rights to use radio frequency spectrums to predominantly mobile companies. A lot of the people who do what I do have either consulted for mobile companies or the governments to try to design the auction itself, or figure out how to participate in it to achieve their goals.”
Vincent has also studied antitrust issues, and was a visiting scholar at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in 1999, one year after he joined the UMD faculty.
Prior to joining UMD, Vincent taught at the University of Western Ontario and Northwestern University, and was a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology and Arizona State University. A Rhodes Scholar, Vincent earned his B.A. in History from the University of Toronto, his M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University, and his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University.
One of Vincent’s favorite experiences over the years—and part of what he is most looking forward to doing as ECON chair—is helping faculty grow.
“Nurturing junior faculty members is the most rewarding part. Once you’ve reached a mature level of your career, it’s one of the biggest thrills seeing younger people get hired and work through the process of becoming successful academics,” he said. I’m really looking forward to that.”
Published on Mon, Jul 20, 2026 - 9:57AM