Nancy Lou Schwartz

The Nancy L. Schwartz Memorial Lecture series is a series of public lectures held annually by the Kellogg Department of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at Northwestern. The series was created in Schwartz's memory by her family, colleagues and friends, and its speakers present topics of fundamental importance to current economic theory. As of 2020, 16 out of the 34 speakers held or have gone on to win a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Her later research fell into two related areas: methods of dynamic optimization, with a particular focus on application, and the effect of industry structure on technological innovation. Schwartz published research on other topics as well. She published in the field of control theory, or dynamic optimization, in the book Dynamic Optimization (1981, with Morton I. Kamien). She wrote about her research in technological innovation in many journal articles and also authored a second book with Kamien, Market Structure and Innovation (1982).

In addition to her university duties, Schwartz served on the Council of The Institute of Management Sciences (1974–1976) and on the editorial board of the American Economic Review from 1981, and she was an associate editor of Econometrica from 1981.

Beginning in 1964, she taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh where she was a tenured associate professor and had been awarded a Ford Foundation Faculty Research Fellowship. In 1970, she accepted a position as a full professor at Northwestern University where she would remain for the rest of her life. From 1977 to 1979 she chaired the Northwestern Department of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences and headed its PhD program. In 1981, she received the appointment to be the Morrison Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences and was director of the graduate studies program at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. With her appointment, she became the first female faculty member appointed to an endowed chair at the Kellogg School.

Nancy L. Schwartz earned her AB at Oberlin College (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1960 and attended graduate school at Purdue University, where she received her MS (1962) and PhD (1964). While at Purdue, one of her classmates was fellow economist Morton I. Kamien with whom she would publish many academic works.

Nancy Lou Schwartz (1939–1981) was an American economist and professor who researched decision sciences and methods of dynamic optimization.