Heather O’Neill, Emeritus Professor of Economics, retired June, 2021.  She introduced quantitative analysis to real world scenarios to show students how to use metrics in numerous situations. Though trained as a theoretical open economy macroeconomist, she quickly re-engineered her skill set to teach applied microeconomics courses while at Ursinus. Her professional publications span varied topics - secondary school and higher education policies, international trade, medical malpractice reform, pharmaceutical R&D, and baseball - all of which incorporate applied econometric techniques. .

While at Ursinus O’Neill received a A Mellon Grant  which enabled her to publish several papers on the role of sports in liberal arts settings, created a sports economics course, and mentored several honors students interested in sports economics. She was a regular attendee of the Society for the Advancement of Baseball Research (SABR) conference, her poster presentations at SABR earned awards in 2013 and 2015 and led to published research in 2014.

As business and society become more driven by data analysis, she was committed to learning new material to share with her students; she obtained two certificates in Data Analytics from Coursera.