Washington, D.C. — The Brookings Institution today announced that Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen will join Brookings as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence with the Economic Studies program, effective February 5, 2018. Yellen will be affiliated with the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings, joining a team of several other leading economists, including former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, who joined Brookings as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence in 2014.

Yellen’s term as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors started February 3, 2014 and ends February 3, 2018. As Chair, Yellen steered an economy in recovery toward greater health, successfully and gradually raising interest rates and reducing the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet without destabilizing markets. During Yellen’s tenure, the unemployment rate fell from 6.7 percent to 4.1 percent in January 2018.

Yellen previously served as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2010 to 2014, as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010, and as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration. Yellen is currently Professor Emerita at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Yellen writes on a wide variety of macroeconomic issues, specializing in the causes, mechanisms, and implications of unemployment. Her full bio is available here on the Brookings website.

“Chair Yellen has performed a great service to her country—the economy and the American people were in good hands with her at the helm of our central bank,” said Brookings President John Allen. “Yellen will continue that service through her research and activities at Brookings, and I’m proud to welcome her to the Brookings community.”

“Yellen’s expertise on such a broad range of issues—from labor economics and unemployment to monetary policy—will be an invaluable contribution to our research,” said Vice President and Director of Economic Studies Ted Gayer. “Her work will no doubt enrich our efforts to research and promote polices that foster an economy that works on behalf of all Americans.”

Of her appointment at Brookings, Chair Yellen said: “I’m delighted to be joining the Brookings Institution. I look forward to continuing to study the economy, especially issues related to the labor market, and contributing to public policy debates on a range of economic issues.”

Yellen’s appointment continues Brookings’s long history of collaboration with economists and policymakers who served in the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Most recently, Nellie Liang, former director of the Office of Financial Stability Policy and Research at the Federal Reserve, joined Economic Studies as the Miriam K. Carliner Senior Fellow in Economic Studies in February 2017. Alice Rivlin and Donald Kohn, both of whom served as Vice Chairs of the Federal Reserve, are Senior Fellows in the Economic Studies Program. Kohn is also the Robert V. Roosa Chair in International Economics. Alan Blinder, former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies.

Past Brookings Board of Trustee members Frederic Delano and Paul Warburg were original members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 1914. Longtime Fed Chair William McChesney Martin, Jr. was a member of the Brookings Board of Trustees from 1970-1997. Edward Gramlich and Nancy Teeters, both Federal Reserve Governors, were Senior Fellows in the Economic Studies. Lael Brainard, also a Federal Reserve Governor, was a Brookings Vice President.