About

I am a Professor of Economics (Emeritus); a writer on gender, ethics, economics, and ecology; a Dharma Holder and Teaching Coordinator at the Greater Boston Zen Center; mother of two grown children and grandmother of one; and, when possible (which hasn’t been lately), an avid dancer.

These might seem like wildly different activities, but I’ve found more and more interconnections between them. A major theme on this blog is “mixing it up.” In fact, one of the commonalities I’ve found is how certain habits of rigid, categorical, oppositional thinking tend to mess us up, no matter whether we are talking about spirituality or statistics. You’ll see this theme throughout most of my blog posts.

If you’re interested in my professional qualifications, or in contacting me, you can easily find that info elsewhere on the web. I hesitated in starting this wide-ranging blog at least in part because professional economists don’t write about “squishy” things like emotions, spiritual practice, dance, and illness. At least they don’t if they want to maintain the pretense of being detached scientists. I’ve never agreed with that image of what science is about, though. I believe that good science is open-minded investigation, and that it advances with thinking outside the box.

I turned 65 last year. What people think of me just isn’t so important anymore.