Tuck School Professor Kenneth French is one of the world's top thinkers in economics and finance, but if you don't find him in his office, look for him to be out skiing or cycling in the New Hampshire countryside he loves.
French and his academic partner, University of Chicago Professor Eugene Fama, were on several shortlists to win this year's Nobel Prize in economics. And though the pair did not walk away with one of the gold medals last week, just being considered for the award puts them among the best in the world.
French specializes in finance, and has received particular attention for his research using time series and cross sections to predict which stocks will outperform the market in the long term.
While some might feel that northern New Hampshire is too removed from the country's major urban centers to sustain a thriving academic business community, French said he thinks that Hanover offers "the ideal life" for academic thought, recreation and family life.
French first arrived in Hanover as a visiting professor at Tuck in 1993 before returning as a full professor in 2001. But the town's allure led him to continue to live in Hanover during the interim, when he commuted to jobs at Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Though Dartmouth has no undergraduate degree in business, Tuck has recently received acclaim and high rankings in several national publication, including The Wall Street Journal and The Economist.
French said he spends almost all of his time doing research, looking at data and writing about it, but admitted that being a professor allowed him to dabble into other things.
"I love it. I get to do what I want, when I want," French said.
Along with his award-winning research, French takes full advantage of the natural beauty of the outdoors in Hanover. In his free time, French said he not only snowboards, cross-country skis and snowshoes, but is also a competitive cyclist. Despite his busy schedules, French stays in excellent physical condition and participates in as many races as time allows.
Before becoming an economist, French majored in engineering as an undergraduate at Lehigh University and worked as an engineer for Kodak for two years.
After going to graduate school in economics at the University of Rochester, he was able to live and work at several of the finest universities in the country including the University of California at Los Angeles, Yale, the University of Chicago and MIT.
French added that his wife and children enjoy living in Hanover, and when asked if he would ever take a position at another school, French said that he was "at Tuck for the duration," adding "I am in Utopia, why should I move?"
