Ben Bernanke Fast Facts

Personal: Birth date: December 13, 1953

Birth place: Augusta, Georgia

Birth name: Ben Shalom Bernanke

Father: Philip Bernanke, a pharmacist

Mother: Edna (Friedman) Bernanke, a substitute teacher

Marriage: Anna (Friedmann) Bernanke (1978-present)

Children: Alyssa, June 21, 1986; Joel, December 5, 1982

Education: Harvard University, B.A. in Economics, 1975 - graduated summa cum laude, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D. in Economics, 1979

Other Facts: Author of textbooks, scholarly articles and books on a variety of economic issues.

Previously served as the director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as a member of its Business Cycle Dating Committee.

Timeline: 1979-1985 - Associate professor at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

1985-1996 - Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton.

1996-2002 - Chairman of the Princeton University Economics Department and the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs.

2002-2005 - Member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System.

June 21, 2005-January 2006 - Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

October 24, 2005 - President George W. Bush nominates Ben Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

January 31, 2006 - Confirmed by the Senate to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke is appointed to a four-year term as chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee which expires January 31, 2010. He is also appointed to a 14-year term as a member on the Board of the Federal Open Market Committee.

February 1, 2006-January 31, 2014 - Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve.

August 25, 2009 - President Barack Obama nominates Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

December 16, 2009 - Named Time's Person of the Year.

January 28, 2010 - Is confirmed by the US Senate for a second four-year term by a vote of 70-30.

February 3, 2014 - Janet Yellen is sworn in as his successor as head of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke joins the Brookings Institution's Economic Studies program as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence.

April 16, 2015 - The New York Times reports that Bernanke has been hired by the hedge fund Citadel LLC as adviser.

April 29, 2015 - Pimco says it's hiring Bernanke as senior adviser.

October 2015 - Bernanke's memoir, "The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath," is published.