Cecilia Rouse, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

Cecilia Elena Rouse was confirmed by the Senate on March 2, 2021 as the 30th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, making her the first Black leader of C.E.A. in its 75-year history. In this role, she serves as President Biden’s Chief Economist and a Member of the Cabinet. She is the Katzman-Ernst Professor in the Economics of Education and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Immediately prior to the Administration, Rouse served as the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. From 2009 to 2011, Rouse served as a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. She worked at the National Economic Council in the Clinton administration as a Special Assistant to the President from 1998 to 1999. Her academic research has focused on the economics of education, including the benefits of community colleges and impact of student loan debt, as well as discrimination and the forces that hold some Americans back in the economy. Rouse was the founding director of the Princeton Education Research Section, and she served as senior editor of The Future of Children, a policy journal published by Princeton and the Brookings Institution. She previously served on the boards of the Council of Foreign Relations, University of Rhode Island and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and was an independent director of the T. Rowe Price Funds. Rouse joined the Princeton faculty in 1992 after earning her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, where she also completed her undergraduate work.