Dr. Sandra J. Peart

Dr. Sandra J. Peart became the fourth dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies in August 2007. In August 2018, she was appointed to the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies. She became president of the Jepson Scholars Foundation in 2019. She is the 2025 president of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, a past president of the International Adam Smith Society, and a past president of the History of Economics Society, where she began the Young Scholars Program.

Since 2018, she has been a Reform Club member and a Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Fellow. In 2024, the History of Economics Society awarded her the Distinguished Fellow Prize for her lifetime contributions to the study of the history of economics. She was also named a Fulbright specialist in 2024, charged with supporting the development of a philosophy, politics, and economics undergraduate program at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago, Chile.

Peart has written or edited 11 books, including her most recent book "The Essential John Stuart Mill" (Fraser Institute: 2021) and two books she co-authored with David M. Levy: "Towards an Economics of Natural Equals: A Documentary History of the Early Virginia School" (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and "Escape from Democracy: The Role of Experts and the Public in Economic Policy" (Cambridge University Press, 2017). She is the author of more than 100 articles in the areas of constitutional political economy, leadership in experimental settings, ethics and economics, and the transition to modern economic thought. Her popular articles on leadership, ethics, higher education, and economic themes have appeared in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, and the Washington Post. 

Peart obtained her doctorate in economics from the University of Toronto in 1989. She began her career as an assistant professor of economics at the College of William and Mary and then joined the faculty at Baldwin-Wallace University. She was a visiting scholar at the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University in 2004–05, and the following year, she was a fellow of the American Council on Education.