— Ch. 1 · Brooklyn Roots And Academic Beginnings —
Janet Yellen.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
Janet Louise Yellen was born on the 13th of August 1946 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Her father Julius worked as a family physician from the ground floor of their home while her mother Anna taught elementary school before becoming a stay-at-home parent. The family had Polish Jewish ancestry and her father's relatives were deported or murdered during the Holocaust in Sokołów Podlaski. Yellen attended Fort Hamilton High School where she served as editor-in-chief of The Pilot newspaper. She graduated valedictorian in 1963 after winning state Regents scholarships and a mayor's citation for scholarship. At Brown University she switched her major from philosophy to economics under professors George Herbert Borts and Herschel Grossman. She earned summa cum laude honors in 1967 before pursuing graduate studies at Yale University. Her doctoral dissertation titled Employment Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy appeared in 1971 under James Tobin who later won the Nobel Memorial Prize. Yellen became the only woman among two dozen economists earning doctorates from Yale that year.
Harvard To Berkeley Transition
Yellen joined Harvard University as assistant professor of economics in 1971 teaching until 1976. She was one of only two female faculty members in Harvard's economics department alongside Rachel McCulloch. The pair wrote several academic papers together including work on efficiency wage theory. In 1977 she took a staff economist position at the Federal Reserve Board recruited by Edwin M. Truman. While working there she met economist George Akerlof in the bank's cafeteria. They married in June 1978 less than a year after meeting. Akerlof had already accepted a teaching position at London School of Economics so Yellen left her Fed post to accompany him. The couple lived in the United Kingdom for two years before returning to America due to identity issues feeling American not English. In 1980 Yellen joined UC Berkeley faculty where she taught at Haas School of Business conducting macroeconomics research. She earned outstanding teaching awards twice in 1985 and 1988 becoming just the second woman at Berkeley-Haas to earn tenure in 1982. By 1992 she held the Bernard T. Rocca Jr. Professor title.