Alison Davis-Blake is the incoming dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, effective July 2006. Davis-Blake comes to the University of Minnesota from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is currently serving as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She is overseeing the school’s day-to-day academic and administrative operations and implementing key aspects of the school’s strategic plan. She is also the Eddy C. Scurlock Centennial Professor of Management. Prior to joining the University of Texas, Davis-Blake was an assistant professor of industrial administration at Carnegie Mellon University.

Davis-Blake is an expert in outsourcing arrangements and organizational employment practices, such as the use of temporary and contract workers, employee leasing, the creation and operation of internal labor markets, and organizational salary structures.

She has authored and co-authored papers in top management journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Industrial Relations, and Industrial Labor Relations Review. She has served on the editorial boards of the Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Review, for which she has been a consulting editor. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.

Davis-Blake’s teaching and consulting experiences have focused on the management of human resources. She has taught at all levels of University education, and co-founded and co-directed an executive master’s degree program in human resource development leadership. She has received a number of awards for both teaching and research excellence.

Davis-Blake received her doctorate in business administration from Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree in economics and master’s degree in organizational behavior from Brigham Young University.