Ben Bernanke

The chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve who took over the helm from Alan Greenspan on February 1, 2006, ending 18 years of Greenspan's leadership at the Fed. A former Fed governor, Bernanke was chairman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers prior to being nominated as Greenspan's successor in late 2005.

Born Benjamin Shalom Bernanke on December 13, 1953, he was the son of a pharmacist and a schoolteacher, and raised in southeastern United States. A high-achieving student, Bernanke completed his undergrad summa cum laude at Harvard University, then went on to complete his Ph.D. at MIT in 1979 by the age of 26. He taught economics at Stanford and then Princeton University until 2002, leaving his academic work for public service.