L. Dwight Israelsen Aggie Family
Scholarship Endowment

Dr. L. Dwight Israelsen was a Professor of Economics, Director of Academic Programs and Initiatives in China, and Director of International Academic Initiatives in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, where he taught for 40 years. He earned a B.A. in Economics from USU, studied Slavic Languages at Harvard, and earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He taught economics for 50 years since his first academic appointment at MIT. He also taught and conducted research at Harvard and BYU. 

Over his career, he won more than two dozen awards for outstanding teaching and research, including eight Best Paper Awards from Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. Dr. Israelsen’s research covered a wide variety of topics in economics, including comparative economic systems, microeconomic theory, macroeconomic theory and policy, incentives and behavior in economic organizations, economic history of Russia and the American West (including Mormon economic history), econometric theory, and most recently, demographic economics. His research is represented by more than 300 articles, books, and presentations at professional meetings. He published articles in the top-ranked American Economic Review and seminal articles on the theory of producer cooperatives (Journal of Comparative Economics) and income distribution measurement theory (Advances in Econometrics) among others. 

At USU, Professor Israelsen taught more than 40 different courses that spanned the entire curriculum, from economic principles courses to Ph.D. courses in economic theory. His teaching awards at USU include 8 Teacher of the Year Awards from the Department of Economics and Finance, 4 Teacher of the Year Awards from the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, and 4 Teaching Excellence Awards from Utah State University. In addition, he received the Professor of the Year Award and the Hall of Fame Award from the President’s Leadership Council. 

He was active in international education and negotiated cooperative agreements between USU and universities in Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, and China. As Director of Academic Programs in China, he supervised USU’s Bachelor’s Degree in Economics with almost 1,000 students at 4 locations in Mainland China and Hong Kong. 

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Israelsen was consultant to a variety of entities, ranging from private firms to municipalities, Indigenous tribes, non-profit groups, and government agencies. Professor Israelsen was active in several professional organizations and found some of his greatest professional and personal satisfaction from his association with the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, its officers and members. In the 40 years since 1976, he presented 47 papers at UASAL meetings and published 18 articles in the Utah Academy journal. In addition, he served as an officer (Chair of Business Division, President, and Member-at-Large) on the UASAL Board for the 20-year period beginning in 1997. 

Dr. Israelsen and his wife JillAnn have 6 children and 21 grandchildren. His hobbies included hunting, traveling, painting, and writing poetry.