Sunday, April 22, 2007

The First Female to Win the J B Clark Award

The American Economic Association announced Friday that Susan Athey, a 36-year-old professor at Harvard University with professional interests ranging from deepest economic theory to Canadian timber auctions, had won the prestigious John Bates Clark medal, awarded every two years to the nation's most promising economist under the age of 40. No woman had won the medal in its 60-year history.

Here is story in WSJ. Here is Susan's webpage at Harvard.

Here is an interesting blogpost on Susan's background, the most interesting bit is certainly the following on her work habits:

"To end, I am going to recount one story about Susan’s work habits. Last year, she was expecting her second child. I got a call which must have been late at night her time. It was Susan and she was trying to complete a few minor things on a project she and I were involved in on timber auctions in Victoria. After a few minutes I asked. “So you must be due soon, how is it going?” Well, apparently, it was going slowly. She was calling me from the delivery room! Most people are content to take that time off. Susan was clearing her to do list! Susan had time to spare and we chatted for a while and for the next hour emails continued to come in. The baby was born soon after."

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