Yellen, Janet L. (Janet Louise), 1946-

<p>On January 26, 2021, Janet Yellen was sworn in as the 78th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. An economist by training, she took office after almost fifty years in academia and public service. She is the first person in American history to have led the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department.</p>

<p>Janet Louise Yellen was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in 1946. Her mother, Anna Ruth, was an elementary school teacher while her father, Julius, worked as a family physician, treating patients out of the ground floor of the family’s brownstone.</p>

<p>In 1967, Secretary Yellen graduated from Brown University and went on to earn her PhD at Yale. She was an assistant professor at Harvard until 1976 when she began working at the Federal Reserve Board. There, in the Fed’s cafeteria, she met fellow economist, George Akerlof. Janet and George would marry later that year. They would go on to have a son, Robert, now also an economics professor.</p>

<p>Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist serving as the United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She is the first woman to hold either role. She is also a professor emerita at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and formerly a distinguished fellow in residence at the Brookings Institution.</p>

<p>Yellen was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1994 to 1997 and again from 2010 to 2018. She chaired the Council of Economic Advisers in the President Bill Clinton administration from 1997 to 1999 and was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010. She served as vice-chair of the Federal Reserve from 2010 to 2014. Yellen was nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She served one term and was not re-appointed by President Donald Trump.</p>