Women in Economics, Policy, and Leadership: A Talk with Lisa Lynch

Lisa M. Lynch is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. During 2025-2026, she is the Stone Visiting Fellow/Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Malcom Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She served as Brandeis University's Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs from 2014-15 and 2016-2020, Interim President of Brandeis University from 2015 to 2016, and Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management from 2008 to 2014. Lynch is the 2025-26 Stone Visiting Scholar/Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor (1995-1997); director (2004-2009), chair (2007-2009) of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; chair of the Conference of Chairmen of the Federal Reserve System (2009); Member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (2018-2024); and president of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (2013-2014). In addition, she has served on the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (2008-2015) and the National Academies Committee on National Statistics (2009-2015). She is a trustee or director on the boards of Regis College, Core Economics Education, and the Economic Policy Institute. A research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at the Rockwool Foundation Institute for the Economy and the Future of Work Berlin, Germany, Professor Lynch has published extensively on the impact of technological change and organizational innovation (especially training) on productivity and wages, race and gender differences in labor market outcomes, the determinants of youth unemployment, and the school-to-work transition, among other issues. She has been a faculty member at Tufts University" Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, MIT's Sloan School, the Ohio State University, and the University of Bristol. Lynch earned her BA in economics and political science at Wellesley College, and her MSc. and Ph.D. in economics at the London School of Economics.

This public lecture is free and open to the public.