Roland Fryer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Roland Fryer
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Roland Gerhard Fryer Jr.
June 4, 1977 Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.
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| Education | University of Texas at Arlington (BA) Pennsylvania State University (PhD) |
| Occupation | Economist, professor |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellowship (2011) Calvó-Armengol Prize (2012) John Bates Clark Medal (2015) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Harvard University (2006–present) |
| Thesis | Mathematical Models of Discrimination and Inequality |
| Doctoral advisor | Tomas Sjöström |
| Influences | Gary Becker Steven Levitt Glenn Loury |
Roland Gerhard Fryer Jr. (born June 4, 1977) is an American economist and professor at Harvard University. He is known for his research on important topics like education and how different groups of people are treated in society.
Professor Fryer joined Harvard University and quickly became a full professor. In 2007, when he was just 30 years old, he became one of the youngest professors and the youngest African American to receive a special status called tenure at Harvard. Tenure means a professor has a permanent job. He has won many important awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2011 and the John Bates Clark Medal in 2015.
His work often looks at how people from different backgrounds achieve success, especially in education. He also studied how police interact with different racial groups.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Roland Fryer grew up in Lewisville, Texas. He faced many challenges during his childhood. Despite these difficulties, he focused on sports and became a star in football and basketball at Lewisville High School.
He earned a sports scholarship to the University of Texas at Arlington. However, he decided to focus on his studies instead of playing sports. He joined the Honors College, which helped him get an academic scholarship. He worked at a McDonald's drive-thru while studying. He finished his bachelor's degree in economics in just two and a half years, graduating with high honors in 1998.
After that, Fryer went to Pennsylvania State University for his advanced studies in economics. He earned his Ph.D. in 2002. He then did more research at the University of Chicago with a famous economist named Gary Becker. Fryer has also worked with other well-known economists like Steven Levitt, who wrote the book Freakonomics.
In 2005, Fryer became a special fellow at Harvard University. After this, he joined Harvard's economics department as an assistant professor in 2006.
Academic Achievements
By 2005, Roland Fryer was seen as a rising star in the academic world. He published many important papers in top academic journals. In 2007, at age 30, he became one of the youngest professors and the youngest African American to receive tenure at Harvard.
In 2007, the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, asked Professor Fryer to be the Chief Equality Officer for the city's education department. In this role, Professor Fryer helped create a project called Opportunity NYC. This project explored if giving students money for good test scores and attending class could help them do better in school.
In 2009, Fryer started the Education Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University. He led this lab, which focused on new ideas in education, until it closed in 2019. In 2011, he received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes called a "Genius Grant." He also won the 2015 John Bates Clark Medal, which is given to the best American economist under 40.
Professor Fryer's research began by looking at social groups and how people are separated. Later, his work focused on real-world issues, especially those related to different racial and ethnic groups. For example, he studied the differences in academic success among students from various backgrounds.
He also published research in 2016 about how police use force. His study looked at whether minority groups were more likely to be shot by police than white people during a police interaction. This research led to a lot of discussion. Fryer's paper was published in the Journal of Political Economy in 2019.
Fryer is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2021, Harvard allowed Professor Fryer to return to teaching and research.
Personal Life
Roland Fryer is married to Franziska Michor, who is a biology professor at Harvard. They met in 2006.
Fryer has also performed stand-up comedy in his free time.
Awards and Honors
Roland Fryer has received many significant awards and honors for his work:
- In 2008, The Economist magazine named him one of the top eight young economists in the world.
- In 2011, he received a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a "Genius Grant."
- In 2015, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal. This award is given to an American economist under 40 who has made the most important contributions to economic ideas and knowledge.
- He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- He also received the Calvó-Armengol International Prize and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
- At 30 years old, he became the youngest African American to receive tenure at Harvard.
Images for kids
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Roland Fryer
See also
In Spanish: Roland G. Fryer, Jr. para niños
