Adriana Kugler

Kugler is of Jewish and Hispanic descent. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in 1991, graduating with first class joint honors in economics and political science. In 1997, she was awarded her Ph.D. by the University of California, Berkeley; her advisors were Nobel laureate George Akerlof, Nada Eissa, and David K. Levine.

Academic and research career

Kugler was Vice-Provost for Faculty for Georgetown University from 2013 to 2016 and is currently a full professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy. She was founder and co-director of the International Summer Institute on Policy Evaluation between 2010 and 2013.

Prior to coming to Georgetown, she was a full and associate professor at the economics departments at the University of Houston and at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Kugler was a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Labor Studies program and a research fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London, the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) in London, and the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Kugler has been on the editorial boards of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, The Journal of Labor and Development, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Labour Economics, Applied Economics Quarterly, and Economia Journal.

Kugler's research includes labor markets and policy evaluation in developed and developing countries. She continues to research and work the causal impacts of with policies that help stimulate youth employment, as well as observe the effect varieties of policies have on worker mobility and job quality. Her research includes labor markets and policy evaluation in developed and developing countries. Her work also includes contributions on the role of public policies (including payroll taxes, employment protections, occupational licensing, and unemployment insurance), unemployment, and immigration.

Kugler was the 2007 recipient of the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association, in recognition of her research contributions to the field of labor and industrial relations.

In 2010, one of her papers, "Trade Reforms and Market Selection: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in Colombia" won first prize for Best Contribution in the area of "Globalization, Regulations and Development" from the Global Development Network.

Kugler was on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP).

She was chair-elect in 2019 and Chair in 2020 of the Business and Economics Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association.

Kugler was on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Technical Advisory Committee from 2016 to 2019.

She was on the National Science Foundation Committee of Visitors for the Division of Social and Economic Sciences in 2016.

Kugler was an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association from 2015 to 2019.

She was an elected member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Labour Economists for six years.

She has been the recipient of numerous research grants for studies in areas that include the role of public policies, unemployment, and immigration on labor markets and policy evaluation in developed and developing countries.

She served as chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor between 2011 and 2013, where she worked actively on developing policies and proposals on unemployment insurance, training programs, retirement benefits, overme pay and minimum wages, immigration, disability insurance and occupational safety regulations.

On August 4, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Kugler to be the U.S. Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the lending arm of the World Bank. Her initial nomination was withdrawn by President Biden on September 20, 2021 because of a typo in her name and she was renominated thatti same day.

President Biden renominated her on January 4, 2022 to be considered under the new session of Congress. Kugler was favorably reported by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 15, 2021 and again on March 8, 2022. The entire Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote on April 7, 2022.