From a middle-class Indian girl to IMF's chief economist
Gita Gopinath (born 8 December 1971) is an Indian-American economist. She is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. She is also a co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has worked as the Economic Adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala.
Gopinath was appointed as chief economist of the International Monetary Fund in October 2018. Her research focuses on International Finance and Macroeconomics. She is co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a co-editor at the American Economic Review, co-editor of the current Handbook of International Economics and was Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Studies. In 2018, she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, she received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Washington. She was named one of the top 25 economists under 45 by the International Monetary Fund in 2014 and was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011.
Gopinath was born in Kolkata, India. Later she did her schooling in Nirmala Convent School in Mysore. She is the younger of two daughters of TV Gopinath and VC Vijayalakshmi, both of whom hail from Kannur, Kerala.
She holds a B.A. from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi (1992), Masters in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi (1994). She completed her M.A. at the University of Washington (1996). In 2001, she completed her Ph.D. at Princeton University. She was awarded the Princeton's Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Research Award while doing her doctorate at Princeton.
Gopinath's husband Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal is Executive Director at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They have a son named Rohil. Please view the link below for motivation.