Around the age of eight, Dr. Kaye Husbands Fealing immigrated to the United States from Barbados with her family. She subsequently became intrigued with understanding and solving problems in the context of developing countries. After studying various trade and industrial policies of countries such as Japan and the United States in graduate school, Husbands Fealing’s interest shifted to technological innovation.
“I noticed technological innovation in the developing country context wasn’t really being absorbed into what was happening in major corporations internationally,” says Husbands Fealing, professor and chair of the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “So that led me to think about why that is the case. Why is there a development of new ideas in certain places that just don’t carry over to others?”
Rather than entering the consulting field or holding a government job, both her father and graduate school advisor at Harvard University encouraged her to pursue teaching as a career.
First hired at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish
the Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) program, Husbands Fealing also worked as an economics program director and co-chaired the Science of Science Policy Interagency Task Group.
Her teaching career began at Williams College in 1989. There, she served as the William Brough professor of economics.
After 20 years at Williams, Husbands Fealing became a professor in the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
