Professor Benjamin assumed his role as the inaugural Vice Provost, SEM after spending a year as Provostial Advisor on Recruitment, Enrolment, and Educational Apace & Technology. Previous to this, he served as Vice-Dean, Graduate Education in the Faculty of Arts & Science (A&S) from 2017 to 2020. In that capacity, he oversaw the budgetary and programmatic administration of the tri-campus graduate programs hosted in A&S. This included management of domestic and international enrolment levels, the design and implementation of graduate student financial supports, and working with graduate units to align academic program structure with their strategic priorities, including academic success for graduate students. Prior to his role as Vice-Dean, Professor Benjamin served several leadership roles in the Department of Economics, including Chair, Associate Chair Undergraduate, and Associate Chair Graduate.

Professor Benjamin is a labour economist whose research has evolved to the broader economics of post-secondary education, where there have been strong complementarities between his scholarship and his administrative responsibilities, such as identifying determinants of success in undergraduate economics, and estimating the economic returns of graduate education in Canada and the United States. On the latter topic, he recently completed service on the Canadian Council of Academies’ Expert Panel on the Labour Market Transition of PhD Graduates, contributing to their just-released report, Degrees of Success. He also served on the Provost’s Advisory Group on Faculty Gender Pay Equity.