Cecilia Ann Conrad (born 4 January 1955) is the CEO of Lever for Change, emeritus professor of economics at Pomona College, and managing director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She formerly served as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Pomona College. She currently oversees the foundation's MacArthur Fellows and 100&Change programs. Her research focuses on the effects of race and gender on economic status. Early life Cecilia Conrad was born on January 4, 1955, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents, Emmett James Conrad and Eleanor Nelson Conrad, moved to Dallas after her father became the first African American surgeon to join the staff of St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas, Texas (now St. Paul University Hospital, University of Texas Southwestern). Dr. Emmett Conrad was appointed to the Texas State Board of Education by Governor Mark White in 1984, the first African American elected to a citywide office in Dallas. Eleanor Conrad acted as his campaign manager. Cecilia was their only child. Education Conrad says evening news coverage of the Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, and the international monetary system sparked her interest in economics. She credits her high school math teacher with helping her further this interest by helping her participate in a NSF sponsored summer math program where she learned number theory, matrix algebra, Fortran, and symbolic logic. Conrad graduated from Wellesley College in 1976 with a degree in economics. She received her master's and doctorate in labor economics, industrial organization, and public finance from Stanford University in 1982. Also during this time, Conrad was a fellow in the Bell Laboratories Cooperative Research program, an affirmative action effort to increase the pool of women and minorities with doctoral degrees who might become future employees. She also worked as an economist at the Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics, Economic Evidence Division. She holds honorary doctorates from both Claremont Graduate University and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Career While still attending Stanford, Conrad worked as an economist at the Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics, Economic Evidence Division. She taught at Barnard College and Duke University after graduating. In 1995, Conrad joined the faculty at Pomona College where she served various roles including the Stedman Sumner Chair in Economics. In 2002, she was awarded California's Carnegie Professor of the Year. Conrad also served as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Pomona from 2004-2007, during which she expanded