Adriana Kugler is an American economist, public servant, and academic whose career spans the highest levels of U.S. and global economic policy. Currently a Full Professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and Economics, she has spent over 15 years shaping research, faculty development, and public discourse on labor markets, monetary policy, and economic inequality.

Most recently, Dr. Kugler served as a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board from September 2023 to August 2025, following her nomination by President Biden and confirmation by the U.S. Senate. As one of only seven members of the Board, she held a voting seat on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the body responsible for setting U.S. monetary policy. She was an active member of multiple committees and served as the Board's representative to the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies. Her public speeches addressed inflation, the distributional effects of rising prices on working families, monetary policy transmission, and the Fed's maximum employment mandate.

Prior to the Federal Reserve, Dr. Kugler served as the U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank from 2022 to 2023, nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate. She championed efforts to address global public goods including climate change, pandemic preparedness, and conflict response. She was instrumental in expediting budget support for Ukraine, led initiatives targeting global food insecurity, and advocated for women and underrepresented groups within the institution. Her contributions earned her the Chase Award from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Earlier, Dr. Kugler served as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor during the Obama Administration from 2011 to 2013, contributing to policy on unemployment insurance, workforce training, minimum wage, immigration, and occupational safety. She also co-founded the International Summer Institute on Policy Evaluation.

At Georgetown, Dr. Kugler served as Vice Provost for Faculty from 2013 to 2016, leading initiatives on promotion and tenure, faculty development, and new-faculty orientation, and securing an NSF grant to support women in STEM. Before Georgetown, she held faculty positions at the University of Houston and the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Her research on labor markets and policy evaluation has been published in leading journals including the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics & Statistics, and the Journal of Labor Economics. She is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research. Her work has informed World Bank World Development Reports and publications by the Inter-American Development Bank and the OECD.

Dr. Kugler has been named to Barron's 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance for two consecutive years, 2024 and 2025, and to Bloomberg Linea's 500 Most Influential People in Latin America in 2023. She received the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award in 2007.

Mentorship is central to her work. She has mentored through the AEA Pipeline Program, CSWEP, the Center for Black Entrepreneurship Research Fellowship Program, and Exploring Careers in Economics. She has co-authored with numerous graduate students and delivered commencement addresses at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Virginia.

A sought-after keynote speaker, she has addressed audiences at the London School of Economics, Princeton, Harvard, the European Central Bank, and the Economic Club of New York. Her work has been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Washington Post.

She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley in 1997 and her Joint BA in Economics and Political Science with First Class Honors from McGill University in 1991.