nclude stints in politics, activism, education, and music. Abreu graduated from Universidad Católica Andres Bello with a degree in economics and was awarded a PhD in Petroleum Economics in 1961. During this time, Abreu also developed his formidable musical skills, playing piano, organ, and harpsichord.
After receiving the Symphonic Music National Prize in 1967, Abreu decided to use music as a form of education. As a result, he founded El Sistema, an organization that uses the power of music as a teaching tool to benefit children from poorer backgrounds. His efforts paid off, as in 1993 El Sistema won the IMC-UNESCO International Music Award.
Abreu has garnered numerous high-profile honors throughout his long career, including the Polar Music Prize (2009) and the Erasmus Prize (2010). In 2012, he also received an honorary doctorate from the University of London’s Institute of Education for his work in music education and social change.
8. Emily Oster
Emily Oster’s academic work has focused heavily on epidemiology. During her 2007 TED Talk, Oster used the study of incentives to explain the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. She argued that in areas where life expectancy is low, there must be little incentive to take extra precautions against AIDS.
Oster is also well known for her revolutionary work dealing with male to female sex ratios in Asia. In her PhD dissertation, she argued that Hepatitis B is responsible for many of the so-called “missing women” in that part of the world.
Interestingly, Oster got her first taste of scientific research at a very young age. When she was just two years old, she was the subject of a number of academic papers based on her parents’ recordings of her speech when she was alone, which was noticeably more complex than when she spoke to adults. The findings, collectively titled Narratives From The Crib, were published in 1989.
7. Daron Acemoğlu
Turkish-American economist Daron Acemoğlu is one of the most heavily cited and influential economists in the world. This MIT professor has received numerous awards for his work, including the John Bates Clark Medal, which he won in 2005. His specific areas of economic expertise are development economics, economic growth, political economy, technology, human capital and training, income and wage inequality, and labor economics.
Acemoğlu’s best-known paper is Colonial Origins of Comparative Development, which he co-wrote with Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. Published in 2001, the paper is considered a pivotal contribution to the field of development economics.
The economist’s most prestigious award to date is the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize, which he won in 2012 for “fundamental contributions to the understanding of political institutions, technical change, and economic growth.” Half of the recipients of this award have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, so maybe he’s in with a chance.
6. Susan C. Athey
In 2007, Susan Athey became the first female economist to win the coveted John Bates Clark Medal. In terms of academic background, before she became Professor of Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Athey was a professor at Harvard. She is also the current Chief Economist for Microsoft.
Athey’s most notable contributions to the field of economics have been introducing a new way to model uncertainty and making sense of investor behavior in the face of uncertainty. She has also discovered ways of detecting and preventing collusion in auctions, which led to the introduction of sealed bids to ensure that bidders cannot share information.
In addition to her theoretical work, Athey has also co-edited several major journals, including American Economic Journals: Microeconomics and the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Athey has also served as an associate editor on prestigious titles like American Economic Review and the RAND Journal of Economics, and she currently holds the same position on Econometrica, Theoretical Economics and Quarterly Journal of Economics. Now that’s what you call keeping busy. Maybe they should hand her a certain awa