Laura Tyson

Laura D'Andrea Tyson (born June 28, 1947) is an American economist and former Chair of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. She also served as Director of the National Economic Council. She is currently a professor at the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley.

Early life and education

Tyson was born Laura D'Andrea in New Jersey. Her father was Italian American and her mother was of Swedish and Dutch descent. Tyson graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Economics from Smith College in 1969 and earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. She joined the faculty of the economics department at Princeton University in 1974 and remained in the position until 1977 when she became a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. She was appointed a professor of business administration in 1990. She is married to writer Erik S. Tarloff and has one son, Elliot S. Tarloff. Her brother is Alan D'Andrea, an American cancer researcher and the Alvan T. and Viola D. Fuller American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School. Her sister is Susan D'Andrea Lee, retired supervising examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York currently a policy advisor at the Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury, Washington DC.