Appointment of Professor Gillian Hadfield as Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society

From: Vivek Goel, Vice-President, Research & Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives
Cheryl Regehr, Vice-President & Provost
Date: July 25, 2019
Re: Appointment of Professor Gillian Hadfield as Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Gillian Hadfield as Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and as the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society for a five-year term to June 30, 2024.

Reporting dually to the Vice-President Research and Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives and to the Vice-President and Provost, the inaugural Director and Chair will provide leadership, mentorship and inspiration for all activities of the Schwartz Reisman Institute. She will focus on the Institute’s overarching mandate to harness strengths across disciplines in order to transform thinking around how society, humanity and technology interact, and how we might shape technology to provide more inclusive economic and social outcomes for citizens. Professor Hadfield will lead cross-divisional and interdisciplinary partnerships and collaborations, program development and delivery, knowledge mobilization and external relations, recruitment of Schwartz Reisman Theme Leaders and Schwartz Reisman Fellows, and operational and financial stewardship.

Professor Gillian Hadfield is currently Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management at the Faculty of Law and the Rotman School of Management. Her research spans humanities, economics, management and technology and addresses questions ranging from the philosophical to the mathematical. Her scholarship is both interdisciplinary and collaborative, recognizing the need to develop meaningful and deep connections between scholars and scientists from different fields to address the challenges raised by new technologies. For example, she examined the twin challenges of globalization and digitization in her 2017 book, Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent it for a Complex Global Economy. Her current collaborations with OpenAI, Deep Mind, the Vector Institute and the Future of Humanity Institute, speak to her expertise in bringing together researchers from diverse disciplines and her superb strengths in engaging in, and fostering interdisciplinary scholarship.

Professor Hadfield has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Queen’s University and a law degree and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. Prior to rejoining the University of Toronto in 2018, she was the Richard L. and Antoinette Schamoi Kirtland Professor of Law and Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California.  She began her teaching career at the University of California Berkeley and was previously at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law from 1995-2000. Over her distinguished career, Professor Hadfield has clerked for Chief Judge Patricia Wald on the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, and has held visiting professorships or fellowships at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Chicago and Stanford. In addition to research and teaching, Hadfield brings experience as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Agile Governance, which focuses on “adaptive, human-centered, inclusive and sustainable” policy-making in the face of technological advancement.

The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society draws on U of T’s across-the-board strengths in sciences, social sciences and humanities to help foster cross-disciplinary solutions to the profound challenges spawned by rapid technological shifts. The institute was established thanks to a landmark $100-million donation – the largest in U of T’s history – by business leaders and philanthropists Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman. The gift will also be used to help break ground on the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre at the northeast corner of College Street and University Avenue, a new space for students and faculty innovators working in business, computer science and biotechnology, among other fields.

Professor Hadfield’s prestigious academic accomplishments and her collaborative and interdisciplinary expertise will be of great benefit to the establishment of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Please join us in congratulating Professor Hadfield on this new appointment.