Washington, D.C., USA - October 5, 2010, Washington, D.C., USA - Janet L. Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin took the oath of office as members of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System.
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Ms. Yellen took office as Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a four-year term ending October 4, 2014. She simultaneously began a 14-year term as a member of the Board that will expire January 31, 2024.
Prior to her appointment as Vice Chair, Dr. Yellen served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Twelfth District Federal Reserve Bank, at San Francisco.
Dr. Yellen is Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley where she was the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business and Professor of Economics and has been a faculty member since 1980.
Dr. Yellen took leave from Berkeley for five years starting August 1994. She served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System through February 1997, and then left the Federal Reserve to become chair of the Council of Economic Advisers through August 1999. She also chaired the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development from 1997 to 1999.
Dr. Yellen is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served as President of the Western Economic Association, Vice President of the American Economic Association and a Fellow of the Yale Corporation.
Dr. Yellen graduated summa cum laude from Brown University with a degree in economics in 1967, and received her Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University in 1971. She received the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale in 1997, an honorary doctor of laws degree from Brown in 1998, and an honorary doctor of humane letters from Bard College in 2000.
An Assistant Professor at Harvard University from 1971 to 1976, Dr. Yellen served as an Economist with the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in 1977 and 1978, and on the faculty of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1978 to 1980. Dr. Yellen has written on a wide variety of macroeconomic issues, while specializing in the causes, mechanisms, and implications of unemployment.
Prior to her appointment to the Board, Ms. Raskin was the Commissioner of Financial Regulation for the State of Maryland. In this capacity, Ms. Raskin and her agency were responsible for regulating all types of financial institutions, including banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders and servicers, and trust companies, among others.
Under her leadership, the Commissioner's Office played an early role in the state's response to the financial crisis, including reforming the foreclosure process, combating foreclosure rescue and loan modification scams and elevating licensing and lending standards.
As the commissioner, Ms. Raskin served on the board of directors of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), and served as the chair of their Federal Legislation Committee. She was also the chair of the CSBS Regulatory Restructuring Task Force, a group of state banking commissioners, and chair of the Consumer Financial Products Agency Task Force. Ms. Raskin was also a member of the State Liaison Committee for the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Prior to serving as commissioner, Ms. Raskin was Managing Director at the Promontory Financial Group. She also served as the Banking Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Earlier in her career, Ms. Raskin worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Joint Economic Committee of the Congress. ■