Adam B. Jaffe is Fred C. Hecht Professor in Economics at Brandeis University. He was previously Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis (2003-2011), and Chair of the Economics Department (2000-2003), having come to Brandeis in 1994 from Harvard University. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (S.B. in Chemistry, 1976; S.M. in Technology and Policy, 1978) and Harvard University (Ph.D. in Economics, 1985), Jaffe is the author of two books -- Patents, Citations and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy (with Manuel Trajtenberg, 2002); and Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress and What to Do About It (with Josh Lerner, 2004). He was a co-founder of the Innovation Policy and the Economy group of the National Bureau of Economic Research and served as senior staff economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (1990-91). He has served as Associate Editor or on the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review, the Rand Journal of Economics and the Journal of Industrial Economics. Research interests include intellectual property, science and technology policy, and innovation related to environment and energy.

In addition to his scholarly activities, Jaffe is active in public policy formulation and debate. He has served on numerous panels and committees for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy of Sciences. He is a Lead Author for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. He has also testified before the U.S. Congress on patent policy reform.