Sara Fisher Ellison

Sara Fisher Ellison serves as Senior Lecturer in MIT's Department of Economics, where she has spent most of her career after completing her education at Purdue University, Cambridge University (as a Churchill Scholar), and MIT. Her research focuses on industrial organization, particularly in pharmaceutical markets and e-commerce, where she has made significant contributions to understanding search behavior, pricing strategies, and market dynamics. As Faculty Director of MIT's DEDP MicroMasters and Masters programs, she developed an award-winning MOOC on data analysis for social scientists that has reached over 100,000 learners. Her academic excellence has been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2021 Levitan Teaching Prize, the 2020 Distinguished Science Award from Purdue University, and the 2017 MITX Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs. She currently serves on the editorial boards of three industrial organization journals (IJIO, JIE, and RIO) while maintaining an active teaching schedule that includes MIT's introductory microeconomics course. Her research has produced influential work on search and obfuscation in online markets, pharmaceutical pricing, and strategic behavior in digital commerce. Beyond academia, she provides consulting expertise in litigation support and management guidance while holding visiting positions at prestigious institutions including the Paris School of Economics, Centre for Economic Studies in Munich, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.