Barbara Morry Fraumeni ’72

Professor Carolyn Shaw Bell had a significant impact on my career as an economist. In 1972, she was the first Chair of the women’s committee of the American Economic Association (AEA), the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). Eventually I became CSWEP Chair, and I helped organize an ongoing and successful mentoring event. She also taught me economic accounting, and later I became chief economist of the federal agency which is best known for estimating gross domestic product, the Bureau of Economic Analysis. I also won the CSWEP’s Carolyn Shaw Bell award, given for furthering the status of women in the economics profession, and in acknowledgement of my contribution to economics, facilitated by my superb Wellesley undergraduate training in the field, in 2025 I was named one of four new AEA Distinguished Fellows. I am forever thankful to Carolyn Shaw Bell and the economics department!