Donna Ginther
Interim Director
Institute for Policy and Social Research
The University of Kansas

Donna K. Ginther is the Dean’s Professor of Economics and the Interim Director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  Prior to joining the University of Kansas faculty, she was a research economist and associate policy adviser in the regional group of the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta from 2000 to 2002, and taught at Washington University from 1997 to 2000 and Southern Methodist University from 1995 to 1997.  Her major fields of study are scientific labor markets, gender differences in employment outcomes, wage inequality, scientific entrepreneurship, children's educational attainments, and child abuse and neglect.

Dr. Ginther has published in several journals, including Science, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Demography, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, and the Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association.  She has also received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.  Her research has been featured in several media outlets including the Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, and the Boston Globe.  

Dr. Ginther testified before the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education of the U.S. House of Representatives on the Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2008.   Dr. Ginther has advised the National Academies of Science, the National Institutes of Health, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on the diversity and future of the scientific workforce.  She has served on the Board of Trustees of the Southern Economic Association and on the Board of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession of the American Economic Association.

A native of Wisconsin, Dr. Ginther received her doctorate in economics in 1995, master's degree in economics in 1991, and bachelor of arts in economics in 1987, all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.