Two department chairs named

New chairs have been named to lead the Departments of Economics and Sociology at East Carolina University.

Dr. Richard Ericson, professor of economics at Columbia University, will become chair of the Department of Economics on July 1. An expert on the Russian economy, Ericson is a past president of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies. He has been a visiting professor at Urals State University in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and at the New Economic School in Moscow. He is the former director of research for the Council of Foreign Relations Russian Economic Task Force. He has written dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters.

Ericson earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University, master’s at Columbia and doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held faculty positions at Harvard and Northwestern universities.

Dr. Robert Lee Maril, professor and chairman of sociology at the University of Texas-Pan American, will become head of the ECU Department of Sociology on Aug. 1. His research interests include Poverty, U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and Fishing Communities, and he is the author of six books.

Maril holds a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s from the University of Indiana and a doctorate from Washington University. Previously he was a faculty member at Oklahoma State University, the University of South Alabama, Texas Southmost College and SUNY College at Brockport.

The appointments were made by Dean Keats Sparrow of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences.