As the president and chief executive officer of one of the 12 reserve banks of the Federal Reserve System as well as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, Mester is one of the most influential decision-makers in U.S. monetary policy.
Described as “mildly hawkish” on monetary policy and willing to dissent, Mester was considered as a candidate to succeed Stanley Fischer as Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and spent most of her career at the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where she was Executive Vice President and Director of Research before taking up leadership at the Cleveland Fed in 2014.
Mester graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Barnard College in 1980 and then received a Ph.D. in economics in 1985 from the University, where she studied as a National Science Foundation Fellow.