Vice President Kamala Harris administered the ceremonial oath of office to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during a welcome ceremony at the White House, January 26.
"Today I swore in Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary," wrote Harris on her official Facebook wall. "Secretary Yellen is a trailblazer, whose deep commitment to working families will be essential as we confront the urgent economic challenges facing the American people."
Previously, Yellen, 74, served as the 15th Chair of the Federal Reserve chair (2014-2018). Prior, she was the 19th Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve (2010-2014). She served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (2010-2018).
Before that, Yellen was the 11th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2004-2010). In the late 1990s, she served as a top economic adviser to the White House and was the 18th chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (1997-1999).
In 1967, Yellen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Pembroke College in Brown University with a degree in economics. At Brown, she switched her planned major from philosophy to economics and was influenced by professors George Borts and Herschel Grossman.
She received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1971. Her dissertation was titled "Employment, Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy: A Disequilibrium Approach" under the supervision of (later to be) Nobel laureate James Tobin.
Her former professor Joseph Stiglitz, another Nobelist, has called Yellen one of his brightest and most memorable students. Two dozen economists earned their Ph.D. from Yale in 1971, including Gary Smith, but Yellen was the only woman among them.
