Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Dr. Mester was born in Baltimore, MD. She graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and economics from Barnard College of Columbia University. She earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Princeton University, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow.

Prior to being named president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Dr. Mester had been executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where she was the chief policy advisor and oversaw the economists and analysts in the Research Department, as well as professionals in the Financial Statistics Department and the Payment Cards Center. She joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in 1985, becoming senior vice president and director of research in 2000.

Dr. Mester is an adjunct professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. She has also taught in the undergraduate finance and M.B.A. programs at Wharton and in the Ph.D. program in finance at New York University.

Her areas of research expertise include the organizational structure and productive efficiency of financial institutions, financial intermediation and regulation, agency problems in credit markets, credit card pricing, central bank governance, and inflation. She has published numerous articles on a variety of topics including economics, central banking, and financial issues. In addition, she is managing editor of the International Journal of Central Banking and co-editor of the Journal of Financial Services Research; and she is an associate editor of several other academic journals.

Dr. Mester is a director of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, a trustee of the Musical Arts Association (Cleveland Orchestra), a director of the Council for Economic Education, a founding director of the Financial Intermediation Research Society, and a member of the advisory board of the Financial Intermediation Network of European Studies (FINEST). She is a member of the American Economic Association, the American Finance Association, the Econometric Society, and the Financial Management Association International.