Zorina Khan takes up Shipman professorship at Bowdoin

Bowdoin College has named Zorina Khan as William D. Shipman Professor in Economics.

She has worked at the institution since 1996, and was promoted to professor of economics in 2010.

Khan is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an expert on intellectual property, entrepreneurship and innovation. She has twice received the Alice Hanson Jones Biennial Prize, which recognizes outstanding books in the field of American economic history.

Her monographs include The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and Inventing Ideas: Patents, Prizes and the Knowledge Economy (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Khan obtained her BSc degree from the University of Surrey in England, an MA at McMaster University in Canada and her doctorate at UCLA.

Commenting on her new post, she said: “In 1824, Bowdoin became the first American college to officially introduce a faculty position dedicated to instruction in economics. I feel deeply honored to have the opportunity to contribute to a Bowdoin tradition of excellence in my field that extends back for almost two centuries.”