Gita Gopinath to leave IMF to rejoin Harvard University faculty

Gita Gopinath, Indian-American economist, who is serving as the first deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said she is rejoining Harvard University as an economics professor.

"After nearly 7 amazing years at the IMF, I have decided to return to my academic roots," Gopinath, the first female chief economist in IMF history, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday night (July 21).

'Truly grateful'

Gopinath will rejoin the Harvard Economics Department on September 1 as the inaugural Gregory and Ania Coffey Professor of Economics.

Also read: India must create 148 million additional jobs by 2030 due to population growth: Gopinath

She said she is "truly grateful" for her time at IMF, where she was first chief economist and then served as first deputy managing director, describing her time there as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve the IMF’s membership during a period of unprecedented challenges.

"I now return to my roots in academia, where I look forward to continuing to push the research frontier in international finance and macroeconomics to address global challenges, and to training the next generation of economists," she said.

IMF stint from 2019

Gopinath joined the IMF in January 2019 as chief economist and was promoted to the post of first deputy managing director in January 2022. Prior to joining the IMF, Gopinath was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics at Harvard University’s economics department (2005-22) and before that she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (2001-05).

Gopinath oversaw the IMF’s multilateral surveillance and analytical work on fiscal and monetary policy, debt, and international trade. As a key member of IMF senior leadership team, she represented the organisation in many international fora, notably the G-7 and G-20.

Gopinath also co-authored the 'Pandemic Plan' on how to end the COVID-19 crisis, a contribution which has widely been hailed as filling an important global gap by setting targets to vaccinate the world at feasible cost, Georgieva said.