UW Major: Economics
Age: 36 | Columbus, Ohio
Associate professor of economics at The Ohio State University and president of the National Economic Association
It’s no wonder that Trevon Logan was unanimously selected as co-chair of his Chancellor’s Scholars class at UW-Madison for three years in a row. His classmates knew even then: Logan was the sort of leader who inspired everyone to do their best.
Today Logan is an award-winning teacher and scholar who recently became the youngest-ever president of the National Economic Association. He has also led several national initiatives to increase diversity in his field.
“My time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison continues to guide the life I lead today,” he says. “While at the UW, I came to see the Wisconsin Idea in action — where education and research were not applied to solve abstract and esoteric problems, but rather to solve real-world problems that have impact. More important, my time at the UW taught me about the responsibility of citizenship — to make investments in the community where you are and to lead through service.”
After earning two master’s degrees and his doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Logan began to climb the ranks of academia, receiving tenure at The Ohio State University when he was just thirty-two.
At Ohio State, he’s affiliated with three policy centers and serves as the director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Economics and as the adviser to the Undergraduate Economics Society. In 2014, he received the OSU Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Logan’s work is also attracting attention far beyond his campus. He was invited to the White House to advise senior officials on how to improve the measures of living standards for low-income families. He serves on the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession, and organized a first-of-its-kind conference for economists from diverse backgrounds. As president of the National Economic Association, he’s working with the World Bank to improve career opportunities for economists from underrepresented groups.
Logan is also a respected scholar whose research has ranged from dowries in South Asia to the economic, social, and health ramifications of male sex workers, to sports betting markets. He sits on the editorial boards of several journals and is a reviewer for the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Logan is committed to community service, too. He serves on the board of Magic Johnson Bridgescape, a local charter school for high school dropouts, and has been active with local organizations that are dedicated to HIV prevention.
“I believe that a true Badger is not someone who wears university regalia and trademarked clothes, but one who takes their experiences offered at the UW, which cannot be replicated anywhere else on earth, to wherever they are,” Logan says. “Taking those pieces of the UW with us is what makes our experience special, and is one small way in which the power of that campus on the isthmus continues to have an outsized impact on the world.”
