Aurélie Ouss Named Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences

Aurélie Ouss, Assistant Professor of Criminology, has been named Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences. Ouss studies how good design of criminal justice institutions and policies can make law enforcement fairer and more efficient. Her research, which has been published in Science, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Public Economics, has received support from the Arnold Foundation, JPAL North America, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. Before coming to Penn, Ouss was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago Crime Lab after completing her Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard University.

The late Janice Bers graduated from Penn with an education degree in 1939. Her husband, the late Julian Bers, graduated from Wharton in 1931. He received Penn’s Alumni Award of Merit in 1968 and served as a trustee of the University, while Janice Bers served as president of her class and on its 50th reunion gift committee. They established this chair in 1972 to recognize assistant professors who demonstrate outstanding promise as teachers and scholars in the social sciences.