Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Geoffrey Tootell is Senior Vice President and Deputy Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Tootell's primary responsibilities include overseeing the work of the department, including economic analysis for the monetary policy deliberations of the Bank President and Board of Directors. Tootell's research focuses on monetary policy, with particular emphasis on the determinants of inflation and the decision-making of the FOMC. He has explored the role asset prices might play in policymaking and whether the Federal Reserve's economic forecasts might be improved by incorporating bank supervisory information. He has also written a number of influential articles on racial patterns in mortgage lending. Tootell received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, where he also did his undergraduate work and was a John Harvard Scholar.

Giovanni P. Olivei is a Vice President in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where he oversees the macroeconomics/finance section of the department. Olivei's current research interests are in monetary economics, with particular emphasis on inflation dynamics, and in international finance, including exchange rate and current account dynamics. Olivei earned his B.A. in economics at Universita Commerciale L. Bocconi, Italy, where he graduated summa cum laude. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at Princeton University.

Patrick de Fontnouvelle is a Vice President in the Supervision and Regulation Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. As head of the Department's Quantitative Analysis Unit, Mr. de Fontnouvelle focuses on internal risk modeling and capital allocation at large banking organizations. Mr. de Fontnouvelle's current research focuses on quantifying financial institutions' operational risk, and on the interplay between operational risk and reputational risk. Prior to joining the Bank, he served as a financial economist at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has also taught economics at Iowa State University. Mr. de Fontnouvelle received his B.A. in mathematics from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin.

Richard Walker joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1994 and is currently the vice president and community affairs officer of the Public and Community Affairs Department. He has been actively involved in promoting fair and equal access to finance and credit through a variety of media. He has nearly three decades of experience in business and community development in Boston and has served in executive positions at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, the Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University, and the Greater Roxbury Development Corporation. In his free time, Richard is an avid fisherman, a gourmet cook, and a wine enthusiast.

Prabal Chakrabarti is director of community affairs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where he co-authored "Venture Capital in Secondary Cities" and "Understanding Foreclosures in Massachusetts." Previously, Prabal was deputy director of research at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, served in the U.S. Treasury under Clinton, and was a senior consultant at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. He attended the University of Illinois and holds graduate degrees from MIT and Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar. Prabal is a member of the Inner City Economic Forum and serves on the board of the Asian Community Development Corporation in Boston.

Alicia Sasser is a Senior Economist in the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Prior to joining the Bank, Ms. Sasser worked as an economist in the private sector and taught economics at Mount Holyoke College. Her current research focuses on housing affordability, migration, expansions in health insurance coverage, and interactions between health and labor markets. Alicia's work has appeared in journals such as Health Affairs and the Journal of Human Resources and has been presented at annual meetings of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, and the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. Ms. Sasser earned both a master's degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University where she also served as a doctoral fellow in the Inequality and Social Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government.

Benjamin Levinger is a Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Ben splits his time between the Center and the broader research department, working on a variety of behavioral and payments-related issues. His current work, under the direction of two department economists, includes a study on individuals with credit card debt and an analysis of the effects of group membership on cooperative economic behavior. He received a B.A. in the mathematics-economics program at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Bo Zhao is a Senior Economist in the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He specializes in urban and regional economics and public economics. His research interests currently focus on state and local public finance, housing markets, and fair housing and lending. Mr. Zhao served on the Municipal Aid Subcommittee of the Municipal Finance Task Force between 2006 and 2007. He was selected by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as one of 20 young scholars nationwide to participate in the 2005 Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Urban Economics and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He has made presentation at various academic meetings, including the National Tax Association's annual conferences and the APPAM annual research conference. Mr. Zhao earned a Ph.D. in economics and an M.S. in applied statistics from Syracuse University.

Burcu Duygan-Bump is a Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, she was a research fellow at the European University Institute, and served as an economic consultant to the World Bank in Washington, D.C. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the Johns Hopkins University, and has a B.A. from Bilkent University.

Deb Besemer is President and CEO of BrassRing, a leading provider of talent management solutions. Prior to being named President and CEO of BrassRing, Ms. Besemer was President and CEO of BrassRing Systems, the recruitment software unit of BrassRing. Under her leadership, BrassRing has grown into one of the most comprehensive software/services solution providers in the human capital management market. Under Ms. Besemer's guidance, BrassRing has assumed and retained a position of leadership among talent management Application Service Providers (ASPs). Prior to joining BrassRing Systems, Ms. Besemer spent more than a decade at Lotus, where she managed a business unit with revenues in excess of $1.3 billion and more than 4,000 employees in 46 countries. She is a former Chairwoman of the Massachusetts Software Council and currently serves as a Trustee and the Chairperson of the Nominating Committee. She is an active member of the University of Massachusetts High Tech Executive Council. Ms Besemer is an active member of the New England Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In addition, she is a former Director of Kubisoft, Inc., Eprise Corporation and the Massachusetts Software Council Fellowship Program, an initiative to retrain people for jobs in software and the Internet. Ms. Besemer holds an M.B.A. from Rutgers University and a B.A. from Cedar Crest College.

Ethan Cohen-Cole is a Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He has worked on banking, risk management, monetary policy, as well as consumer finance issues related to housing and bankruptcy. In the applied microeconomics field, his work has focused on the implications of social networks in health, welfare and personal finance. Methodologically, he focuses on issues of identification of network phenomena. He earned a B.A. from Harvard University in 1995, a M.P.A from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School in 2001 and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2006.

Evangelos Sekeris is a Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. His research focuses on cross sectional asset pricing. His most current research looks at the implications of incomplete information in asset pricing models. Evan received his B.A. and his M.A. in economics from the Universite Catholique de Louvain and his M.A. and PhD from UCLA.

Joanna Stavins is a Senior Economist and Policy Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she focuses on payments issues. Her research includes all payment methods, such as paper and electronic checks, credit cards, and ACH, analyzing the costs of alternative payment instruments and the demand for those instruments, and estimating social costs and benefits of various payment methods. She is a member of the Emerging Payments Research Group at the Boston Fed, where her research focuses on understanding how and why consumers pay the way they do. She has conducted econometric analyses of pricing and market structure in several industries, including personal computers, airlines, and credit cards. Her publications include articles in the RAND Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, and Journal of Financial Services Research. She has served as an economic advisor to various payments groups, both within and outside the Federal Reserve System. She earned both her B.A. and her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. Prior to joining the Bank in 1995, she worked as a senior analyst at National Economic Research Associates and as a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Judit Montoriol-Garriga is a Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Her research focuses on lending relationships, and, in particular, she is currently investigating the impact of bank mergers on credit availability and loan conditions of the borrowing firms. She obtained her PhD at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2006). She was previously consultant for the World Bank (2003-2004) and was a visiting scholar at New York University (2005).

After graduating from Cornell, Matthew lived in Boston, MA, for two years, but has since returned to his hometown of Buffalo, NY. While at Cornell, he was a research assistant at the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, and has published scholarly articles on the economics of higher education. He was also the founding editor of The Muse, Cornell's annual collection of memoirs from graduating seniors.

Robert Kraft is Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of the Kraft Group of companies based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Kraft Group is a private holding company comprised of companies in the paper and packaging industries, sports and entertainment, and private equity investing. In paper and packaging the Group's holdings include International Forest Products; the Rand-Whitney Group, a manufacturer of corrugated containers with five facilities; Rand-Whitney Containerboard, a manufacturer of recycled linerboard as well as recycling facilities located throughout the US. In sports and entertainment the Group's holdings include the New England Patriots of the National Football League; Gillette Stadium, the largest entertainment venue in the six state New England region; and the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer.

Todd Prono is a Financial Economist in the Supervision, Regulation, and Credit Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. His current research interests include higher moment-based identification and the relationship between market skewness and asset returns. Todd received his B.A. in economics and English from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in economics from Boston College.

David A. Lentini, age 62, has been a director since 2001. He currently is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Connecticut Bank and Trust Company. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and he also serves on the Board of Cooper-Atkins Corporation. He retired in December 2001 as Senior Vice President of Webster Bank where he had served since December 1999. From May 1993 to November 1999, he was President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of New England Community Bancorp, Inc., a multi-bank holding company.

James C. Smith is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Webster and Webster Bank, having been elected Chief Executive Officer in 1987 and Chairman in 1995. Mr. Smith joined Webster Bank in 1975, and was elected President, Chief Operating Officer and a director of Webster Bank in 1982 and of Webster in 1986. Mr. Smith served as President of Webster and Webster Bank until April 2000. Mr. Smith is a member of the Federal Advisory Council, which advises the deliberations of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He is a member of the executive committee of the Connecticut Bankers Association, and is a former member of the board of directors of the American Bankers Association (ABA) and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. He is a director of MacDermid, Incorporated (NYSE: MRD), and the Palace Theater and St. Mary s Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut. Mr. Smith is Chairman of the Executive Committee.

Kirk Sykes. Mr. Sykes has been a Director of Capital Crossing Preferred since August 2004. He is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Mr. Sykes is the head of an urban investment, development and redevelopment fund called Urban Strategy America, L.P.

I have been involved with several enterprises over the last 30 years. I spent six years at Digital in various management positions. Upon leaving Digital, I joined WANG as V.P. for International Manufacturing. In 1986 I joined Hadco, and retired in 1995 as President and CEO. I currently sit on the boards of several companies, including: Manufacturers Services Limited Advisory Board, and PhotoMachining, Inc. I am a past board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and IPC (The Institute of Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits).