Advisory Board

Olivia S. Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor, and Professor of Insurance/Risk Management and Business Economics/Policy; Executive Director of the Pension Research Council; and Director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research; all at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Concurrently Dr. Mitchell serves as a Research Associate at the NBER; Independent Director on the Allspring Funds Boards; and Executive Board Member for the Michigan Retirement Research Center. She also serves on the Academic Advisory Council for the Consumer Finance Institute at the Philadelphia Federal Reserve and the UNSW Centre for Pensions and Superannuation. In 2023, she was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. She earned her B.A. in Economics from Harvard University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Julie R. Agnew is the Richard C. Kraemer Term Professor of Business at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. Her research and consulting activities focus on behavioral finance and its relationship to financial decisions made by individuals in their retirement plans. She received her B.A. in Economics from the College of William and Mary, and her Ph.D. degree in Finance from Boston College.

Robert L. Clark is the Stephen Zelnak Professor of Economics and Professor of Management, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in the Poole College of Management, North Carolina State University, and Research Associate at the NBER. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council.  His research examines retirement decisions, the choice between defined benefit and defined contribution plans, the impact of pension conversions to defined contribution and cash balance plans, the role of information and communications on 401(k) contributions, and government regulation of pensions. His BA in economics is from Millsaps College, and his PhD in Economics is from Duke University.

Peter R. Fisher is a Managing Director at BlackRock in the Strategy Function, where he leads the firm’s global retirement initiative. He also currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. Previously he was BlackRock’s Chairman of Asia and Head of Fixed Income, taught at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, served as the Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for Domestic Finance, worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and was executive vice president and Manager of the Federal Reserve System Open Market Account. He also was a non-executive director of the Financial Services Authority of the UK and a member of the Strategic Advisory Committee of the Agence France Tresor of the French Treasury. Other positions included Board member of AIG, Board member of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and member of the Board of Governors of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). He received his JD degree from Harvard Law School and BA in history from Harvard College.

Francisco Gomes is a Professor of Finance and Chair of the Finance Department at London Business School. He holds a BA from the New University of Lisbon and a PhD from Harvard University. After working at the Bank of Portugal, he joined London Business School in 2000. His research on household finance, capital markets, asset allocation, and macroeconomics has been published in leading journals and featured in major media outlets. Dr. Gomes is also a research affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and an Associate Editor at The Journal of Finance and The Journal of Financial Economics.

Fiona Greig, Ph.D., is global head of investor research and policy in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group, where she leads Vanguard’s global retirement and investor behavior research efforts. Her research focuses on household finance and the use of financial data to drive insights for both policymakers and business leaders. Previously she was co-president and founding research director of the JPMorgan Chase Institute, and she was deputy budget director for the City of Philadelphia, a consultant at McKinsey & Company for public and social sector clients, and a consultant at the Washington DC Economic Partnership. She has also been an adjunct professor at Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown University. Fiona earned a B.A. in international relations from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School.

P. Brett Hammond is Research Leader of the Client Analytics Group at the Capital Group, where his research interests include finance, higher education, and public policy. He is also Executive VP of the Institute for Research in Quantitative Finance (Q Group), Trustee of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, editor of the Journal of Retirement, and serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. Previously, he served as Managing Director at MSCI, Chief Investment Strategist at TIAA-CREF, on the staff of The National Academies and a member of the UCLA faculty. He received his BA degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of California at Santa Cruz and his Ph.D. from MIT.

Mark Iwry is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Visiting Scholar at the Wharton School; he also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council.  He formerly was Senior Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Treasury’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Retirement and Health Policy, Treasury’s Benefits Tax Counsel, a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling, Of Counsel to Sullivan & Cromwell, and a research professor at Georgetown University. Over his career he has played a central role in initiating and designing ways to enhance retirement savings. He is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and he earned his Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Melissa Kahn is the Managing Director for Retirement Policy for the Defined Contribution team at State Street Global Advisors, where she leads the DC team in developing and communicating the team’s public policy positions as they relate to the retirement market, and she is responsible for cultivating relationships with key retirement policy decision-makers. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. Previously, she consulted on strategic planning, policy analysis, and advocacy work on retirement, long-term care, Social Security, and global employee benefits She also worked at MetLife and the Retirement Strategies Group, the American Council of Life Insurance, and the Equitable Life Assurance Society of America. Her BA is from Cornell University and her JD from Georgetown University.

Surya Kolluri is head of the TIAA Institute, where he oversees research on enhancing lifelong financial security and organizational effectiveness in higher education and the broader nonprofit sector. He also serves as advisor to the Wharton Social Impact Investing Initiative; serves on Wharton’s Pension Research Council Advisory Board; and sits on the board of the MA/NH Chapter of the US Alzheimer’s Association. Previously he worked at Bank of America, A.T. Kearney, Bain & Co. He earned his MBA at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and his Master’s in mechanical engineering from Drexel University.

Annamaria Lusardi is a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Financial Freedom Initiative, at Stanford University. Her research focuses on financial literacy and personal finance. Previously, she taught at The George Washington University and Dartmouth College. She has also visited Princeton University, the University of  Chicago, Columbia University, and the Harvard Business School. She serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. She earned her BA in Economics from Bocconi University, her Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Vaasa in Finland.

Jeannine Markoe Raymond is Director of Federal Relations for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators where she advocates for the interests of NASRA members before policymakers; she also is a liaison to other professional associations, interest groups, and policy organizations. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council.  Previously she was a legislative analyst for the Government Finance Officers Association, and she also worked for the California Debt Advisory Commission within the California State Treasurer’s Office. She received her BA in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and her MS with honors in public administration and intergovernmental management from the University of Southern California.

Raimond Maurer is the Chair of Investment, Portfolio Management, and Pension Finance at the Finance Department of the Goethe University Frankfurt. He concurrently serves in several professional capacities including the Union Real Estate Investment group, the Society of Actuaries (academic chairman of AFIR), the Association of Certified International Investment Analysts (academic director and member of the International Examination Committee); and the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. His research focuses on asset management, life-time portfolio choice, real estate, and pension finance. He earned his habilitation, dissertation, and diploma in business administration from Mannheim University, and he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the State University of Finance and Economics of St. Petersburg.

Michael Orszag is Global Head of Research at WillisTowersWatson, a global actuarial consulting firm. His research interests include pensions, personnel economics, risk management, and insurance. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. He is a founding editor of the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan and his AB in economics from Princeton University.

David P. Richardson is a TIAA managing director and head of research at the TIAA Institute, where his research interests include public pensions, employer retirement benefit plans and household financial security. He also serves on the Research Committee of the International Centre for Pension Management, is a trustee of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, and serves on the Advisory board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. Previously he was senior economist for public finance at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and financial economist in the Office of Tax Policy at the U.S. Treasury. He also taught at Georgia State University and Davidson College.  Richardson earned his M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics from Boston College, and his B.B.A. from the University of Georgia.

Nikolai Roussanov is Moise Y. Safra Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. His research focuses on interactions between asset pricing and macroeconomics, including equity, fixed income, currency, and commodity markets; he also explores entrepreneurship and individual financial behavior.  He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago.

Richard C. Shea is chair of Covington & Burling LLP‘s Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation practice, where he focuses on cash balance, pension equity, and other complex benefit plan designs. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s Pension Research Council. Previously, he served as Associate Benefits Tax Counsel at the Treasury Department, where, together with his colleagues at the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, he was responsible for developing federal tax legislation and regulations governing employee benefits and executive compensation. He received his AB from Amherst College and his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Kent Smetters is a Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He is a Research Associate at the NBER and serves on the Advisory Board for Wharton’s Pension Research Council. His research and policy interests include government debt, Social Security policy, insurance, financial planning; he also studies factors influencing wellbeing among the elderly. Previously he visited Stanford University and served at the US Treasury. He earned his BA degrees in Economics and Computer Science from the Ohio State University, and his Masters and PhD degrees in Economics from Harvard University.