Biographical Info of Charles M. Becker
Charles M. Becker currently serves as Associate Chair of Duke University's Economics Department and concurrently directs the M.S. in Economics and Computation program. He joined Duke in 2003, and held previous positions at the University of Colorado at Denver (1999-2003), the University of Colorado at Boulder (1987-2003), the Economics Institute (1987-1998), and Vanderbilt University (1982-1986). In addition to his positions held in academia, he has been a consultant for the World Bank, a senior economist at the consultancies Pragma and IMCC, and a senior advisor within the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Team Leader of an Asian Development Bank pension reform technical assistance project to the Kyrgyz Republic (1998-1999).
Dr. Becker attended Princeton University (Ph.D., 1981). His research interests include economic demography, economic development, economic analysis of transition economies, and urban economics. His most recent publications and research projects include Pension Reform in Transition Economies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and papers from ongoing projects on techniques for assessing infant mortality undercounting, migration responsiveness to uncertainty in labor market outcomes, disability transition risks in middle income countries, estimating standardized disability rates, exploring the role of education on attitudes toward other ethnicities and, more broadly, the impact of Soviet affirmative action policies on growth outcomes in its periphery. Becker is also interested in factors contributing to minority student achievement in the American context.
From 2001-2007, Dr. Becker directed the American Economic Association’s Summer Program and Minority Scholarship Program, during which time he was involved with the mentorship of 195 students, of whom a majority have gone on or are heading to doctoral programs. In 2008, Becker’s contributions to his field were acknowledged when he was named a lifetime member of the American Economic Association and given the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award by Duke University. He is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Economic Association.