Sandra E. Black is a Professor in the Department of Economics and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

She has been the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs and was a Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Since that time, she worked as an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and an Assistant, Associate, and ultimately Professor in the Department of Economics at UCLA before arriving at the University of Texas, Austin in 2010.

She is currently an Editor of the Journal of Labor Economics and was previously a Co-Editor and Editor of the Journal of Human Resources. Dr. Black is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Affiliate at IZA, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution. She served as a Member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from August 2015-January 2017.

Her research focuses on the role of early life experiences on the long-run outcomes of children, as well as issues of gender and discrimination.