Leadership Spotlight

The Wharton School has announced the appointment of Barbara Kahn as the next vice dean of the School's Undergraduate Division. Kahn will succeed Vice Dean Thomas Dunfee when his term ends June 30, 2003.

"Vice Dean Dunfee has been a wonderful leader for the Undergraduate Division," said Dean Patrick Harker. "Under his leadership, the undergraduate team has continued to deliver outstanding advising and support services to our students."

Kahn is the Dorothy Silberberg Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School. She joined the Wharton faculty in 1990 after serving on the faculty at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a senior fellow of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and the Leonard Davis Institute and a faculty member of the Graduate Group in the Psychology Department of the School of Arts and Sciences. She received a bachelor of arts in English literature at the University of Rochester. She also earned a master in business administration in marketing and statistics, a M.Phil., and a doctorate in marketing from Columbia University.

"We are very pleased to welcome Professor Kahn to her new role on July 1, 2003," said Harker. "She will bring a deep commitment to undergraduate education."

Kahn teaches Introduction to Marketing to between 400 and 500 undergraduates each semester it is offered, as well as Marketing Research and Consumer Behavior. In 1999, she received the David W. Hauck Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Undergraduate Division. She has served on Penn's Committee on Undergraduate Strategic Planning (2001-02) and as a member of the Wharton Undergraduate Curriculum Committee from 1993 to 1996, chairing the committee during academic year 1995-96.

Also an outstanding research scholar, she has written more than 30 articles published in major journals in marketing, consumer research, retailing, and statistics. She is co-author of the book, Grocery Revolution: New Focus on the Consumer.