Yale SOM Dean Kerwin Charles Named to Board of the International Rescue Committee

The International Rescue Committee, which works in more than 40 countries to help people affected by humanitarian crises, announced on March 31 that Kerwin K. Charles, the Indra K. Nooyi Dean and Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Economics, Policy, and Management at Yale SOM, has joined its board of directors. As a member of the board, Charles will help ensure the organization’s success by providing governance, counsel, and fiscal oversight.

The IRC is doing vital work to help restore health, safety, education, economic well-being, and power to people affected by conflict or disaster, including in Ukraine and Afghanistan. David Miliband, president and CEO of the IRC, said in the announcement, “Bold leadership is needed to match the scale of humanitarian crises around the world. The IRC is governed by a board of volunteers to further our mission to help people affected by humanitarian crises to survive, recover, and rebuild their lives.”

Charles is a leading economist who has studied and published on topics including earnings and wealth inequality, conspicuous consumption, race and gender labor market discrimination, the intergenerational transmission of economic status, and worker and family adjustment to job loss and health shocks. He currently serves as the vice president of the American Economics Association, the vice chair of NORC at the University of Chicago, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economics.

Charles said, “I am honored to join the board of directors of an organization that brings a nuanced and humane approach to the recovery and prosperity of survivors of conflict and disaster. In particular, I am humbled to bring to bear my own expertise in economics and inequality to the IRC’s efforts to ensure economic well-being and power for individuals and families during and long after crises.”