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Raj Chetty
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Raj Chetty

William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, Harvard University

One of the top economists in the world, Raj Chetty tackles the inequality in American society—including in education, housing, and longevity—through the powerful lens of economics. When COVID-19 hit, Chetty and his team of Harvard researchers created the first and only real-time economic tracker documenting the pandemic’s lopsided effects on the population.

In addition to his pioneering work on the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, Chetty has presented a crucial study on economic mobility to the Obama administration and worked on a study analyzing which American colleges help children climb the social ladder with his groundbreaking “Opportunity Atlas”—a visualization of his paradigm-shifting research.

Chetty received his Ph.D. from Harvard University at the age of 23 and later became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard’s history. A winner of the John Bates Clark Medal for best American economist under 40, Chetty has also received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and was formerly a Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is currently the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University, and the Director of Opportunity Insights, which uses “big data” to explore how to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds a better shot at success.