Growing up in India, Gina Gopinath did not know anyone who worked in economics. It was more common for children to aspire to become a doctor or an engineer. She studied science through high school and when her parents’ friends suggested that she would enjoy success working for the country’s administrative services, she went to Delhi to study economics. This was in the early 1990s, when India was facing an economic crisis. Gopinath was hooked, and her interest in international finance and economics only continued to grow.
Gopinath took a “leave of public service” from her job teaching international studies and economics at Harvard University to assume the position as chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Called “one of the world’s outstanding economists,” Gopinath focuses her research on international finance and macroeconomics. She has been widely published in top economics journals and has received numerous honors, including election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honor India’s government gives to overseas Indians and persons of Indian origin.
Gopinath says that her most important advice is to have inner strength because you really have to believe in what you are capable of to keep pushing your ideas forward. “It’s exactly what the world is worried about: recession, jobs, inequality. It’s so clear to people these are important issues. And given my science background, I like that I’m bringing in some mathematical rigor … to understand these issues of the day.”
