Secretary Janet Yellen, Jen Pahlka to join the Advisory Board of Yale’s Tobin Center
As the Tobin Center enters a new era of impact, its Advisory Board will inform the organization's strategy, deepen its relationships with policymakers, and expand its impact at all levels of government.
The Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale University is proud to announce two new members of its external Advisory Board. Former Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will rejoin the board after serving as a founding board member during the center's establishment. Jen Pahlka—founder of the Recoding America Fund and Code for America, former deputy chief technology officer of the United States, and one of the architects of the U.S. Digital Response—will also join the board.
Launched in 2019 and named for the late James Tobin, an iconic Yale faculty member and Nobel laureate, the Tobin Center is a core component of Yale's university-wide strategy to advance data-driven social science that shapes and informs public policy. The center works alongside Yale faculty to enable frontier research, to build bridges between Yale faculty and policymakers at all levels of government, and to ensure cutting-edge Yale research can inform policy and improve the lives of Americans across the country.
"Jen Pahlka and Secretary Yellen will bring extraordinary perspective and knowledge to the Tobin Center at a pivotal moment for the center,” said Michelle Hahn, Tobin Center Acting Executive Director. “We have big ambitions moving forward, and their expertise–on so many of the issues we study but also how to create change from within government–will be invaluable."
“This is an exciting and important time for the Tobin Center,” said Tobin Center Faculty Director Steve Berry. “We're at a moment of sharpening our focus—building on what we've already done and pushing for even greater impact in the areas where this work matters most—making it even more essential to have a strong, skilled, and smart external advisory board. I’m immensely grateful that Secretary Yellen and Jen Pahlka are willing to lend their time and extraordinary expertise to Yale and the Tobin Center.”
Welcoming two distinguished Advisory Board members
Janet Yellen served as the 78th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and as the 15th Chair of the Federal Reserve. A distinguished economist who earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1971, she brings unparalleled expertise in using best-in-class economic research to inform and improve public policy. Her career reflects a rare combination of scholarly rigor and consequential public leadership that exemplifies the Tobin Center's own aspirations.
Jen Pahlka, a member of the Yale Class of 1991, is a leading voice on the intersection of technology, government, and public service. She is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and the founding board chair of the Recoding America Fund. Ezra Klein called her book Recoding America “one of the best policy books I have ever read” and “the book I wish all policymakers would read.” She has served as deputy chief technology officer of the United States under President Obama and a member of the Defense Innovation Board under Obama and Trump. Pahlka founded the award-winning nonprofit Code for America, which she led for ten years.
A new era of impact
Now in its sixth year as an organization, the Tobin Center is entering an exciting new era of impact. In this next phase, the center's Advisory Board will inform the organization's strategy, deepen its relationships with policymakers, and expand its impact at all levels of government.