Catherine Millay Coleman Eckel is the Sarah and John Lindsey Professor in the Liberal Arts and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Behavioral Economics and Policy Program.
Her research focuses on experimental economics, and she has studied charitable giving; cooperation, trust, and risk tolerance in poor, urban settings; the coordination of counter-terrorism policy; gender differences in preferences and behavior; and discrimination by race and gender as evidenced in games of trust.
She has served as a program director for the National Science Foundation, an editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2005-2012), and has served as associate editor or on the editorial boards of twelve journals.
Eckel, an award-winning teacher, has advised 15 PhD dissertations, and her past students now hold faculty positions across the globe.
She engages her undergraduate students with projects consisting largely of original research.