Professor Emeritus of Economics Jacob "Jack" Michaelsen passed away on July 11, 2024. Michaelsen earned his Ph.D. in economics and finance from the University of Chicago in 1961. He joined UC Santa Cruz as an assistant professor during the campus’s founding in 1965. He was a founding member of Cowell College and the then "Economics Board," which later became the Economics Department.
Michaelsen was the third chair of the Economics Department, and he eventually served as chair three times, lending great service to the department. As a scholar, his research focus was on finance, and he was known for his work on term structure and interest rates. He retired and separated from the university in January 1993. One of the last visits he made to the Economics Department was for an alumni event in April 2015, where he met and chatted with returning alumni, several undergraduate students, and current faculty and administrative staff.
Just as our campus benefited from Jack's engagement over the years, his obituary in the Santa Cruz Sentinel likewise describes a man with a profound commitment to service for his community.
