Richard Lyons

Richard Kent Lyons (born February 10, 1961) is an American economist who has been the 12th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, since July 2024.

At UC Berkeley, he served as chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer from 2020 to 2024 and as dean of its Haas School of Business from 2008 to 2018. He joined the UC Berkeley business faculty in 1993 after earning a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and teaching at Columbia University for six years.

Early life and education Lyons was born on February 10, 1961, in Palo Alto, California. He received a Bachelor of Science in business from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity there. He then received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988 under the supervision of Rudiger Dornbusch. He is married and has two children.