Skip to main content

Dean Kerwin Charles Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Charles joins a select group of artists, intellectuals, and leaders as a member of the American Academy.

Dean Kerwin K. Charles

Kerwin K. Charles, the Indra K. Nooyi Dean & Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Economics, Policy & Management at Yale SOM, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his contributions to economics, the academy announced on April 19. Along with 268 other intellectuals, artists, writers, and distinguished leaders, Charles joins one of the nation’s oldest learned societies, whose earliest members included Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. 

“With the election of these members, the Academy is honoring excellence, innovation, and leadership and recognizing a broad array of stellar accomplishments,” said David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy. “We hope every new member celebrates this achievement and joins our work advancing the common good.”

Charles, who has served as Yale SOM’s dean since 2019, has been widely recognized for his scholarship on earnings and wealth inequality, conspicuous consumption, race and gender labor market discrimination, and other microeconomic issues. Before coming to Yale, Charles was the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergmann Distinguished Service professor at the University of Chicago, and among other professional duties, he recently served as the vice president of the American Economics Association and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was recently also named a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded during the Revolutionary War with the intention “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Today, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences both honors leading scholars and public figures as members and convenes discussions of issues important to the nation and the world. Notable members have included Jonas Salk, Barbara McClintock, Martin Luther King, Jr., Martha Graham, Georgia O’Keeffe, E. O. Wilson, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell.