Former treasury secretary and Fed chair Janet Yellen visits Brandeis

Brandeis Stories

Former treasury secretary and Fed chair Janet Yellen visits Brandeis

Talks economic policy with students, new Distinguished Chair in Business named in her honor

By Michelle Gaseau
Photography by Gaelen Morse
October 29, 2025

In a whirlwind visit to the Brandeis campus on Oct. 28, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Federal Reserve Chair and economics leader Janet Yellen interacted with undergraduate students, saw a new Distinguished Chair in Business named in her honor and met with university officials and faculty at a dinner to celebrate the occasion.

The Distinguished Chair in Business, which was endowed through a generous gift from Brandeis alum Barbara Clarke, MA'91, was presented to Professor Anna Scherbina, who teaches finance at the Brandeis School of Business and Economics. Yellen, a close friend and research collaborator of the late Brandeis Economics Professor Rachel McCulloch, was also the 2019 recipient of the Business School's Dean's Medal in recognition of her exemplary career.

Clarke, an investor, economist and entrepreneur, is the founder of The Impact Seat Foundation, which invests in companies that are either led by women of color or have women on their funding teams to specifically create opportunities for under-represented entrepreneurs. Clarke is also an active and influential member on the Board of Advisors at Brandeis' School of Business and Economics.

"We are so pleased to have hosted Secretary Yellen, and thrilled that she had the opportunity to speak with the next generation of economists studying at Brandeis under our respected faculty in our School of Business and Economics," said Dean of the School of Business and Economics Linda Bui.

During Yellen's visit to Professor Jean-Paul L'Huillier's Macroeconomic Theory class, she fielded a variety of questions from undergraduate students, ranging from her thoughts on economic concepts that should be more widely understood in government circles to the impacts of geopolitics on the economy.

Currently a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institute, Yellen shared with students her appreciation for macroeconomics and the ability to apply those theories to her work; the importance of governments building relationships and strong alliances globally to prevent against economic disruption; and her thoughts on success as a woman in a male-dominated field.

Yellen told the class that mentorship and relationship building was crucial to her success in the economics field. She also spoke about the greatest challenge she faced in her career: the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. She shared lessons she and others learned about the need to more deeply understand trends in the banking industry and their impact on the economy as a whole. These lessons led to the creation of the Financial Stability Division at the Federal Reserve, she said.