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Warwick to award honorary degree to Janet L. Yellen Chair of the US Federal Reserve System

Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet L. YellenThe University of Warwick has announced today, Monday the 5th of October 2015, that it is to award an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) to Janet L. Yellen, Chair of the US Federal Reserve System (often known as “the Fed”). The award will be made at a ceremony to be held in Washington DC on 19 November 2015.

Professor Sir Nigel Thrift Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Warwick said:

“We are delighted that the woman who leads one the US’s, and indeed one of the world’s, most important financial institutions has agreed to receive an honorary degree from the University of Warwick. Warwick is a global university and two of our most significant engagements are in the US. These are our plans to create a campus in Placer county in California and our partnership in The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) which is a unique public-private research center that uses New York City as its laboratory and classroom to help cities around the world become more productive and livable.”

A short biography follows of Chair Janet L. Yellen:

She took office as Chair of the Fed’s Board of Governors in February 2014, for a four-year term which will end in January 2018. Her term as a member of the Board of Governors will expire in January 2024.

She graduated from Brown University with a degree in economics in 1967. She received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1971. From 1971 to 1976, she was an assistant professor at Harvard University. From 1977 to 1978, she worked for the Board of Governors as an economist, before taking up an academic position at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) between 1978–80.

She joined the University of California at Berkeley in 1980. During her time there, she was also the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business and Professor of Economics.

She continues to be an Emeritus professor of the University of California at Berkeley but she took leave from her full time post at Berkley in 1994. She then served as a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors until February 1997 when she left to become chair of the Council of Economic Advisers through August 1999. She also chaired the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development from 1997 to 1999. She has also served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2004–10) as well as vice chair of the Feds’ Board of Governors (2010-14) before her appointment as chair.

Chair Yellen is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served as President of the Western Economic Association, Vice President of the American Economic Association, and a Fellow of the Yale Corporation.

She has received a number of academic honours during her career. These include the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale in 1997, and honorary doctorates from Brown, Bard College, LSE and Yale.

Chair Yellen has written on a wide variety of macroeconomic issues, while specializing in the causes, mechanisms, and implications of unemployment.

For further information please contact:

Peter Dunn, Director of Press and Policy, University of Warwick
Tel UK: 024 76523708 office 07767 655860 mobile
Tel Overseas: +44 (0)24 76523708 office +44 (0)7767 655860 mobile/cell
Email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk

 

PR471 PJD 5th October 2015