Economist Gita Gopinath has become the first Keralite woman to become a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Science.
In a letter to Gita, president of the Academy Jonathan F. Fanton said that the membership reflects how the economic scholars of the world value her contributions. The membership will be officially given to Gita at a function to be held at the Academy headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Along with Gita, former US president Barack Obama was also granted the membership, though in the public policy category.
Currently, Gita is the economic advisor of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and a professor at the Harvard University.
Eminent members of the Academy in the past included Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, John Maynard Keynes, John Adams, Alexander Graham Bell and Winston Churchill.The Academy, one of the oldest in the US, bestows its membership to scholars and scientists from different streams such economics, physics, chemistry, biology, maths, computer science and public policy. As many as 250 Nobel laureates and Pulitzer prize winners are members of the Academy.
Gita was accorded the coveted membership at the age of 45, when usually others get it past 60 years. At the global level, only 5,000 people are given membership in the Academy. New membership is given Only when an existing member dies.
Gita was born in Mysore in 1971, and spent her childhood there. Her father T.V. Gopinath, who is settled in Mysore, is a farmer and entrepreneur from Kannur district. She holds a B.A. from Lady Shri Ram College for Women and M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, both under the University of Delhi. She took another M.A. from the University of Washington. In 2001, she completed her Ph.D from Princeton University.
Her husband and former classmate Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal is a director of policy at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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