Raj Chetty

Economist Raj Chetty is considered one of the most influential social scientists working today. Chetty competed in ISEF and STS in 1997 before earning a doctoral degree from Harvard University. His research, which focuses on the drivers of upward economic mobility, aims to help improve government policy to help more children rise out of poverty. In 2018, Chetty founded Opportunity Insights, a center based at Harvard University that is dedicated to harnessing big data to improve upward mobility in the U.S. Chetty’s pioneering research on barriers to economic opportunity using big data to test and refine economic theories is reshaping the field of economics. With his colleagues, Chetty found that America has many “lost Einsteins”— women and people from minoritized or low-income groups who could have made significant discoveries if they had been exposed to innovation as children. Chetty’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship and the John Bates Clark Medal.