More About David Autor
David Autor is the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, codirector of the NBER Labor Studies Program and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.
Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019, the Society for Progress Medal in 2021—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship in 2018 and Best Instructor award from the MIT Graduate Economic Association in 2025. In 2020, Autor received the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was selected as one of two researchers across all scientific fields a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist. Autor was one of five senior scholars selected by the Schmidt Sciences Foundation as an AI2050 Senior Fellow in 2024. He was named the Center for Economic Studies Distinguished Fellow in 2025 and gave the CES Munich Lecture in Economics. Autor is also a Visiting Fellow in the Google Technology and Society Program.
The Economist magazine labeled Autor in 2019 as “The academic voice of the American worker.” Later that same year, and with greater justification, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist” by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight in a segment on automation and employment.
Further detail
Autor is an elected Fellow of the Econometrics Society, the Society of Labor Economists, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. He is co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program and the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative.
His other teaching awards include the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for excellence in teaching, the Undergraduate Economic Association Teaching Award, and the Faculty Appreciation Award from the MIT TPP program.
Autor earned a B.A. in Psychology from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1999. Prior to graduate study, he spent three years directing computer skills education for economically disadvantaged children and adults in San Francisco and South Africa. Autor is the captain of the MIT Economics intramural hockey team, which is reputed to be one of the most highly cited teams in the MIT intramural league.