Jan de Vries, a professor of both history and economics at U.C. Berkeley, will serve as interim dean of the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Sciences starting Nov. 10, 2008 through June 30, 2009. He succeeds Jon Gjerde, who died unexpectedly on Oct. 26.

A faculty member since 1973, de Vries is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of European History.  He previously served as interim dean of Social Sciences in 1999 and was chairman of the history department from 1987 to 1991.

For seven years (2000-2007) de Vries served as the campus's first Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Faculty Welfare, where he oversaw all aspects of the academic-personnel process and directed work toward faculty equity and academic compliance. Under his leadership the campus launched key initiatives to improve faculty compensation and establish the Berkeley Retirement Incentive Program.

"We are so fortunate that Jan DeVries has agreed to step into the Social Sciences deanship at this most difficult time," said Mark Richards, executive dean of the College of Letters and Science. "Jan is a world-class scholar and brings a great depth of experience to the job, including having served as interim Social Sciences dean before his distinguished service as Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs and Faculty Welfare. We all look forward to working with Jan, and especially to his famously droll sense of humor."

De Vries is an expert in European economic history, early modern European history, demographic history, and Dutch history. He co-edited the five volumes of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (Oxford University Press, 2003), and authored "The Dutch Atlantic Economies” in The Atlantic Economy of the Eighteenth Century (University of South Carolina Press). He is the recipient of the A.H. Heineken Prize for History and has published widely on European and Dutch economic history.

De Vries received his A.B. from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from Yale University.