“Economics does provide a very powerful tool for changing public policy,” says Heidi Hartmann, founder of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, who currently serves as a distinguished economist and resident at the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics at American University.

“I like to be enabling, but have all students follow their own passions,” says Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and co-director of the Gender in the Economy Study Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The National Economic Association and its members have done a lot of really important work within the profession, work that is often unheralded,” says Nina Banks, president of the NEA and associate professor at Bucknell University. She talks about her new book and research on community activism by marginalized women.

“I didn’t see #MeToo coming, but it came, and it’s taking a while still to come for economics, but it is,” says Betsey Stevenson, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan’s Ford School. She talks about her research on women’s labor market experiences and how her teaching style has changed

“I was born in a different country, and that colored my life experience,” says Carmen Reinhart, Harvard professor, about her decision to study international economics. She discusses the male-dominated field of finance and explains how she approaches economics with a detective’s frame of mind.