On Sept. 27, the NYU Abu Dhabi community learned of the loss of a mentor, colleague and first-class scholar, Rebecca “Becky” Morton, Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Development, and Global Network Professor of Politics and Economics. Among her many contributions to NYUAD academically and socially, she was the founder and director of the Social Science Experiment Laboratory and pioneer of the postdoctoral program in the Social Science Division, cultivating a group of young scholars and mentees.

In order to honor her contribution to the NYUAD community, The Gazelle contacted Professor Morton’s colleagues, advisees and students, asking them to reflect on her legacy, both personal and professional.

As the tributes below show, Professor Morton was a tour de force, a pioneering woman in every sense. No words can encompass all that she was, and still is. We at The Gazelle hope that this tribute sheds light, however partially, on her legacy.

At the Faculty Council meeting on Sept. 27, the chair of the council — Eric Hamilton, Lecturer in the Social Science Division — gave remarks on behalf of the faculty, honoring Professor Morton’s selfless commitment to the NYUAD community of scholars and administrators:

“This has been a very shocking, sad and raw day for me, and I know for so many of us. I want to try to say something on behalf of both the faculty and in particular the faculty in social science. This was the start of Becky’s eighth year in the division as a faculty member, and even before then she was involved in planning and held visiting positions with us. Her fingerprints are literally all over the division — from our faculty to our research to our curriculum — and she can only be described as an intellectual force in the social sciences.”

Vice Chancellor Mariët Westermann also gave remarks honoring Professor Morton’s innumerable contributions to the social sciences at NYUAD. Westermann reassured faculty that an event to remember and celebrate Becky’s life will be held in the months to come and shared a touching memory from a recent interaction with Professor Morton:

“Having met Becky in the early days of envisioning social science at NYUAD, I was delighted some years later to hear that she enjoyed being an affiliated faculty member so much that she wanted to become fully embedded at NYUAD and help build out the division. When I ran into her in A5, just days after I returned to NYUAD last fall, I thanked her. She would have none of the thanks, and was all for the forward movement for social science and NYUAD. She just said: this place has become an incredible institution. You should see the fantastic social science research lab we have set up, and you will be so proud of all the postdocs who work with us. We agreed I would attend a seminar with her and with them in the lab sometime in the spring. For obvious reasons that did not happen, and it saddens me. But when we do have that seminar, and we will, I will hear her voice.”

“Food was the primary language through which I connected with Becky Morton. Cooking for others requires planning, time and intentionality — the same invaluable gifts Becky brought to the postdoc program. Many of our conversations revolved around the cuisines and restaurants we enjoyed, the food her daughter cooked that she so proudly shared, and her hints for me to contribute a Vietnamese dish to the Mardi Gras parties that she so famously hosted. As food guards the body and spirit, so, too, did Becky nourish her postdocs. She did so for me as soon as I arrived in Abu Dhabi. At the first sign that I faced difficulties adjusting, Becky charged in. She enlisted the help of postdocs who had come before, and in doing so, fostered a sense of community. This community was forged for me over two years of intellectual exchange, always with the breaking of bread and a scandalous amount of desserts, lest twenty postdocs mutinied over the shortage of brownies.

Some of my last conversations with Becky were about the foods she craved — above all, the infamous Brauhaus — and the things 2020 had taken that we sorely missed. I will remember Becky for her unintentionally excellent comedic timing as well as for the fear she struck in the hearts of many, including me. As an experimentalist who specialized in voting, Becky shared no methodological or substantive research interests with me. But she mentored me nonetheless, as someone fiercely invested in my professional development on my terms. Her openness gave me the space to curate this NYUAD experience as I saw fit, and to do so with the support of a caring community. I will remember fondly the meals that we shared, of the language of care that we shared. And I will be ever grateful for all of the labor she put into feeding the body to sustain the mind and spirit.”

“When I look back to my first J-Term experience at NYUAD, I think of strange-tasting curry cookies, an exhausting albeit mind-opening number of conference rooms and the amount of knowledge that Professor Morton had offered to us, as her students, and to the entire experimental social science discipline. She was a leader in her field, an innovator and an inspiring researcher with a peculiar sense of humor — the type you get 10 minutes after the joke was made. From the U.S., and all the way to India and the UAE — the places where she conducted some of her research — Professor Morton will be missed. Her J-Term class will definitely remain an experience that we, her tiny class of four students, will remember by the memories we made, discussions we had and the amazing people we met.”

“Becky Morton was an intellectual giant with a down-to-earth persona — a rare combination in academia. As a first-generation college student, I often felt out of place in the academic world. I came from a blue collar town and wasn’t accustomed to fancy trappings. Becky made me feel like I belonged. This ethos drove her contributions to the development of political science and experimental social science at NYUAD. Her academic reputation and prowess helped to put us on the map, but her cordial persona and genuineness helped to recruit and retain a talented cadre of young faculty. She’s a large part of the reason I was recruited here. Becky gave me invaluable career advice and advocated for me tirelessly. With her passing, I lost not only a mentor, but also a friend. I will miss her greatly and hope that our political science program can continue to honor her memory through perpetuating her approach to scholarship and to life.”

“I first met Becky a little more than 10 years ago. I was in Melbourne, Australia, at the time, and Becky came to give a research seminar. After her talk, we went to grab lunch at a typical Melbourne café with some other seminar attendees. It was a sunny day. We sat outside, in the backyard of the café, at a rectangular wooden table. In her distinct voice, Becky would talk and talk, as she often did. It was then when I learned that NYU was about to open a satellite campus in Abu Dhabi. I thought it was odd having New York University in another city, let alone in Abu Dhabi. She was nonchalant about it, as she would often be in the future when talking about topics I knew she cared deeply about.

The second time I met her was not long afterwards in Bonn, Germany. This time we were both giving a seminar at the Max Planck Institute. I was the first to speak. As I was about to start, she came to me and apologized for the fact that she wouldn’t be paying attention to my talk: “I have to finish my slides,” she said. She had no qualms. She needed to do what she needed to do, and that was that. A few years later, when we were both in Abu Dhabi, one of our colleagues tried to provide an excuse for not being able to attend a meeting. He cited a family commitment. “I don’t need to know your reasons,” she fired back at him! We both laughed and never explained our reasons to her again.

Becky was key in my decision to join NYUAD. I knew that, if she was there, then the enterprise was serious. You see, to join NYUAD in 2013, you had to either have a lot of madness in you, a lot of faith or both! I got a lot of faith by the fact that Becky was there part time. (Don’t ask me about the madness). Becky sat with me at the rooftop terrace in Sama Tower — the skyscraper where most of NYU’s operations and faculty used to be housed at the time. Next to the pool, on the 50th floor of Sama, she talked to us about everything Abu Dhabi related. She was warm and collegial. She shared lots of information and offered me advice on everything: from removing my tie for the lecture I was about to give to her students, to how to handle the salary negotiations with the New Yorkers. She also asked me never to tell her my salary: “You economists you get paid so much more” she said. After the pool conversation, she showed us her lab — the Social Science Experimental Laboratory — which at the time was housed in a one-bedroom apartment. The computer terminals were surrounded by dark wooden kitchen cupboards and all sorts of appliances. I learned then that nothing could get in the way of Becky’s research!

I interacted regularly with Becky in the last seven years; the last seven years of her life. The interactions grew more frequent after she moved full-time to Abu Dhabi. They became daily during the period when we were putting together the application for a joint research center: the Center for Behavioral Institutional Design. There are so many moments during this period that it’s difficult to single out any of them. My favorite ones were during after-conference or workshop dinners, but most of our interactions were on work-related matters. As work-related matters go, it was not uncommon for us to disagree or even have tense moments, despite the fact that we were always on the same side. Looking back now, I remember many of these moments with tenderness. Because the reason for most of our tense moments was that Becky, in her singular, no-nonsense way, was trying to school me and improve my ways of doing things. Nothing could stop Becky from speaking her mind, especially when it came to those around her — faculty and students alike — for whom she cared to no end.

During one after-conference dinner in her apartment in Manhattan, Becky discovered that we shared an appreciation for the musical “My Fair Lady.” She became so excited that for weeks to come she would keep talking about it. She shared with me a bunch of trivia, told me about all the different productions she had seen over the years and about the songs she loved from when she was a girl. It was nice to see Becky so unguarded and excited. This created a deeper bond and appreciation of each other. No one that could have danced all night could be half bad. I didn't get to see Becky as unguarded and excited again, except when she was talking about her daughters — Renda and Charlotte. She adored them and was immensely proud of them. Prouder of them than of all her outstanding achievements at work and contributions to social science.”

“Working with Becky was truly an exceptional experience that changed many things in my life. Even though my training was in artificial intelligence and not in experimental economics, Becky took a liking to my research field and believed we could do many interesting and interdisciplinary projects together that involve both of our fields. She was very patient in teaching me the concepts used in her field and would look up my published work and read it as a reference during our meetings. She also took me on trips to different countries to teach me about experimental economics through attending seminars and workshops and to share our work with well-known scholars in the field.

Thanks to Becky, I have met many amazing people and gained a lot of experience. I was genuinely impressed by her dedication and personality. Becky was not only a mentor, she was a friend and a mother who took a very good care of me and my colleagues and always stood by our sides. She will never be forgotten and will be dearly missed.”

“One of my earliest memories of Abu Dhabi is with Becky, who took me to lunch on the second day of my visit. Trying out fattoush, tabbouleh, shish taouk, fruit cocktail and Lebanese pastry for the first time, I knew I was in safe hands. As an awfully distressed job market candidate feeling insecure in his research and career, I found much comfort in her welcoming sense of humor and caring nature.

Coming back to Abu Dhabi in my second year, I remember being relieved and happy to see a familiar face. Becky always supported the junior faculty and made sure to keep us connected with the folks in New York. Her tireless, devoted commitment to the NYUAD social science division, and especially the political science program, made its mark with many students, postdocs and faculty. We all benefited tremendously from the warm mentorship and generosity that she shared with us since the founding of the institution.

While she mentored me throughout my years at NYUAD, I remain especially grateful for her involvement as the associate dean in charge of my tenure evaluation. The words of encouragement and assurance that came from her meant so much to me in the months leading up to the docket submission. Perhaps the biggest compliment that I received from Becky, the words that I truly cherish now, came during a dinner, when she said that she really wanted me to stay at NYUAD because it is a good place with many young faculty members who are genuinely nice and care for each other. She valued camaraderie as much as scholarship in any department, and she found it at NYUAD. She also said that she enjoyed sharing meals with me. This kind remark reminded me that we were not just colleagues, but also good friends. I will dearly miss her presence in our division and in my life. She was a giant among all of us, and her legacy carries on inside so many people that she touched.”

Professor Morton’s office at the NYU New York campus. Photo courtesy of Christopher Paik.

“How can you talk about Becky? You need to condense her spirit, squeeze her qualities, reduce her intellect, make it all to fit in three-four adjectives. What words can I find?

You can say that Becky was generous. But then people will think she donated to charities or that she fed kittens. Becky didn’t feed kittens. She used her time, her resources, her status, to help young scholars climb their ladder. First things that come to mind are her workshops and the after-parties with the bottomless gumbo pots — but there was more than that. She would fund experiments of PhD students who could not afford it — she would go in the lab for them; she would invest so much energy to fight to get research budgets and office spaces for postdocs. She would pull all her contacts to figure out how to get a passport for her mentee who couldn’t get one and had never left Abu Dhabi. She would spend so much of herself to create opportunities and then she would offer these opportunities like they happened upon her. She was not contributing to public goods; she was one. And you must ask, what kind of person can be generous like that? Maybe someone who has walked the easy path of life, a privileged person who is grateful and wants to give back to maintain the karma. But I know that Becky’s life was no stroll. And I am not saying this only because she had to fight her way into the man’s world while raising two daughters by herself. Becky was not offered a fraction of the opportunities she created. She made herself and her own path — and, you know, she could have said, “if I had to do it all by myself, let the others do it on their own too.” Instead, she said, “I had a hard ride, I will work to make it easier for the rest.” So, sure, you can call her generous but the word would fall short.

You could also say that Becky was smart. But then people would think she could calculate things in her head very fast. But it was not about that. She was book smart and street smart and game theory smart and movies and music smart. Her intelligence was both natural and acquired. A person like that could use their skills in many ways. I bet Becky could have been a fierce and much better paid CEO for some big company. She chose to work building knowledge. And that she did — in such magnitude, with such dedication and painful thoroughness. Obviously I knew the work of Rebecca Morton. That is what I thought when she interviewed me.

A year later, after we had used all our persuasion and soft skills, some other colleagues and I convinced her to let us make her a Wikipedia page. Having to review all her work, her books, her papers, her positions, her service, her story I realized I knew only a section of Rebecca Morton’s work. But even if you read all her books and manuscripts you will only get a worm’s-eye view on her intelligence. The manuscripts cannot show you how she managed to carry her skills from a small place in Louisiana to becoming a global academic leader. How she instinctively knew the perfect proportions of patience and intolerance to get herself and her research heard and well respected in tables that would refuse to keep a seat available to her. She was clever to know what risks were worth taking and she had the gut to believe in herself and her calculations. Again, you can call her smart but you see how simple adjectives are failing us again?

Of course, you could also say that Becky was fair and just. Then people would imagine that she was a person considering all sides before deciding about people and matters. Maybe some would even think of her as the type of politically correct person who is sensitive to other people’s individualities and self-identifications. But this is not reflecting her innate and absolute indifference about your age, nationality, income, religion, political preference, sexual orientation, past felonies or about how cute your baby or pet is. She was genuinely disinterested in all that; she might have smirked at your preference to not try her shrimp gumbo but that was about it. She was bias-free in such an uncomplicated way that it would take you some time to believe that such a life posture was possible without pretending it. In a time when diversity and inclusion are becoming buzzwords and box-ticking exercises, it was so refreshing being around a truly neutral person like Becky. Were you a henna tattoo artist who wants to learn about experiments, a bus driver looking for a job in the UAE, a distinguished global professor of economics needing to use the SSEL lab? Becky would listen and make time for you and respond to your email within an hour in all time zones. So, what adjectives can I use for my mentor to do her justice as she did to everyone she encountered?

Writing these words has been both relieving and exhausting. I want to go on with how she took me in, intimidated as I was to come to NYUAD without an Ivy League diploma, scared of being placed in the shadow of my senior-colleague husband. How lucky I was to have her shake me out of this idiotic nonsense, push me to find my research niche, reassure me that she also believed in me. I would want to use this space to say all the thank yous I didn’t get to say to her but I know this is the point where she would start shouting at me; she would not want any of my thanks. She would probably tell me to get a drink, get it together and get to work. So, I will just go on doing that.”

Becky is a presence, even now that she is gone.

She said to me once that you need a big self in order to get through academia. She had that big self, along with a big heart, and she used both to make an unforgettable impact at NYUAD and beyond.

Becky made an impact through her scholarship, most recently in experimental studies: she was a founding editor of the Journal of Experimental Political Science and the chair of the American Political Science Association’s section on experimental methods.

She was a force in creating institutions that supported and mentored graduate students, postdocs and younger scholars across the academy, and always had time, for lunch, a drink or a conversation when colleagues or students sought her out informally.

Most of all she made an impact through who she was. Becky was always truly herself: authentic, unapologetic and entirely original. Throughout her life, she flourished in spaces that were not always welcoming of women, by showing up, taking up space, speaking her mind, never ever subsiding and refusing to disappear.

What was true of her in life remains true in death: she will not disappear.