IMF Chief Gita Gopinath to leave post and return to Harvard

IMF's chief economist Gita Gopinath will leave the post in January to resume her job at Harvard University. The 49-year-old prominent Indian-American economist had joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the Chief Economist in January 2019.

Mysuru-born Gopinath who is the first-ever woman Chief Economist of the IMF will rejoin Harvard University in January to retain her tenured faculty post. The normal maximum leave granted under Harvard’s rules is two consecutive years for public service. The university had extended her leave by one year on an exceptional basis.

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Born in December 1971 to Malayalee parents, Gopinath had her schooling in Kolkata and graduated from the Lady Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi. Gopinath did her Ph.D in economics from Princeton University in 2001 and she was guided by Kenneth Rogoff, Ben Bernanke and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.

She joined Harvard in 2005 to became a tenured Professor there in 2010. She is the third woman in the history of Harvard to be a tenured professor at its economics department and the first Indian since the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to hold that position.