Sharon Oster served as dean of the Yale School of Management from 2008 to 2011. She is a specialist in competitive strategy, microeconomic theory, industrial organization, the economics of regulation and antitrust, and nonprofit strategy. She has written extensively on the regulation of business and competitive strategy. Professor Oster’s book Modern Competitive Analysis, used widely at management schools, integrates a broad range of views in its analysis of management strategy and emphasizes an economic approach to strategic planning. Her second book, Strategic Management for Nonprofit Organizations, takes the same economic approach to managing nonprofit organizations. Professor Oster has consulted widely to private, public, and nonprofit organizations.

Professor Oster received her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University in 1970 and her PhD from Harvard in 1974. She received the first Yale School of Management Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1988 and received this award again in 2008.