Cecilia Elena Rouse is the Lawrence and Shirley Katzman and Lewis and Anna Ernst Professor in the Economics of Education and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. Affiliated with the School of Public and International Affairs, she currently serves as president of the Brookings Institution. Rouse joined the Princeton faculty in 1992 after earning her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, where she also completed her undergraduate work. A labor economist with a particular focus on the economics of education, she is the founding director of the Princeton Education Research Section. She previously served as dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Rouse has distinguished herself through extensive public service. She served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers for the first two years of the Biden-Harris Administration, becoming the first Black American to hold the position in its 75-year history, confirmed by the U.S. Senate with 95 votes. This marked her third White House role, following her tenure as a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2011 and as Special Assistant to the President on the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration from 1998 to 1999. Rouse is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Education. She holds key editorial positions, including senior editor of The Future of Children, a policy journal published by Princeton and the Brookings Institution, co-editor of the Journal of Labor Economics, and serves on the editorial boards of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and other journals. Previously, she was on the boards of the Council of Foreign Relations, University of Rhode Island, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and served as an independent director of the T. Rowe Price Funds. Her scholarship in Business & Economics, particularly on labor markets and educational outcomes, has profoundly influenced academic discourse and policy formulation at institutions like Princeton University.

Professional Email: rouse@princeton.edu