Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American bankruptcy law expert, Harvard Law School professor, and the U.S. Senator-elect for the state of Massachusetts, having defeated incumbent Senator Scott Brown in the 2012 election. Her work as a national policy advocate led to the conception and establishment of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has written a number of academic and popular works, and is a frequent subject of media interviews regarding the American economy and personal finance.

Born in Oklahoma City, Warren attended The George Washington University and the University of Houston. She received a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law–Newark in 1976, and went on to teach law at several universities before joining Harvard in the early 1990s.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Warren served as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). She later served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Barack Obama. In the late 2000s she was recognized by publications such as the National Law Journal and the Time 100 as an increasingly influential public policy figure.

In September 2011, Warren announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, challenging Republican incumbent Scott Brown. She won the general election on November 6, 2012, and will be the first female senator from Massachusetts to sit in the US Senate.