MDRC Board Member Cecilia Rouse to Receive 2016 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economic Association

MDRC Board Member Cecilia Rouse, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, is the recipient of the 2016 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award. Given annually since 1998 by the American Economic Association’s (AEA) Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP), the Bell Award recognizes and honors an individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession. Professor Rouse will accept the Bell Award at the annual award ceremony held during the 2017 AEA Meeting in Chicago.

Professor Rouse is a labor economist and is one of the nation’s leading experts on the economics of education. Her research confronts questions of significant policy importance, including investigating the effects of school vouchers and school accountability measures, measuring the labor market returns to community college, measuring discrimination, and studying new technologies in education.

In addition to her outstanding scholarship, Dr. Rouse has dedicated significant time to professional and public service at the very highest levels. She is a senior editor of the journal Future of Children, a prior editor of the Journal of Labor Economics, and, in addition, Dr. Rouse has taken on top policy positions in Washington D.C. for two Presidents: one year as a member of President Clinton’s National Economic Council and two years as a member of President Obama’s Council on Economic Advisers.

Named after the first Chair of CSWEP, the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award was created as part of the 25th Anniversary celebration of the founding of the CSWEP and is given annually to an individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession through example, achievements, increasing our understanding of how women can advance in the economics profession, or mentoring others.

“On behalf of the Board and staff of MDRC, I congratulate Ceci on this well-deserved honor,” said MDRC President Gordon Berlin. “It recognizes what we have always appreciated about Ceci: her unique capacity to bridge the worlds of research, scholarship, and public policy and to guide others by both example and her good counsel.”