Ann Fetter Friedlaender

Friedlaender died of cancer at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston on October 19, 1992. Her family established a Professorship after her death. Her brother Alexander Fetter, is Professor Emeritus of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University.

Friedlaender's work with Spady, Transport Regulation: Equity, Efficiency, and Competition in the Rail and Trucking Industries, raised a lot of attention along with significant policy implications. Also, Friedlaender was very invested in improving learning materials for students. Friedlaender joined John F. Due as the second author and edited the fifth and later editions of Government Finance: Economics of the Public Sector in 1973, helping to improve the classic textbook published in seven editions from 1954–1981. The then provost, Professor John M. Deutch, described her as "one of the best deans to have graced MIT in its history," adding, "She is a person of enormous wisdom and her accomplishments for the school have been just as enormous."

Friedlaender returned to the United States and taught at Boston College as a lecturer, receiving a promotion to an assistant professor, and then a promotion to professor from 1965 to 1974. In 1972, Friedlaender became a visiting professor at the MIT Department of Economics. In 1974, she was a professor at MIT's Department of Economics and Civil Engineering. She was appointed chair of the Economics department in 1983, becoming the first woman to head an academic department at MIT. She was named Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences from 1984 to 1990. Friedlaender was also held positions off campus as a director of the Rand Corporation and of Conrail; a member of the American Economic Association, serving on the executive committee for two years; the chair of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (1978–1980; and an associate editor of Transportation Science for 14 years.

Ann Fetter Friedlaender (1938–1992) was a noted American economist. Friedlaender held appointments in two MIT departments as Professor of Civil Engineering and Economics for the class of 1941. Dr Friedlaender was seen as an authority in the field of public finance, with a speciality in transportation studies. The first woman to head one of MIT's five schools, she served as Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science from 1984 to 1990..mw-parser-output .infobox-subbox{padding:0;border:none;margin:-3px;width:auto;min-width:100%;font-size:100%;clear:none;float:none;background-color:transparent}.mw-parser-output .infobox-3cols-child{margin:auto}.mw-parser-output .infobox .navbar{font-size:100%}body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-header,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-subheader,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-above,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-title,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-image,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-full-data,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-below{text-align:center}

Ann Fetter Friedlaender was born in Philadelphia in 1938. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Radcliffe College in 1960. She married architect Stephan Friedlaender in December of the same year. Ann had two sons, Lucas Ferdinand and Nathaniel Mark. In 1964, she completed her PhD. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Albert Ando as her advisor. After graduation, Friedlaender worked for one year in Finland as a Fulbright lecturer.