Nobel Prize Winning Economist, Author. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992 for his work regarding microeconomics in relation to human behavior. Born in a Pennsylvania mining town, his father was a small business owner, Gary’s family relocated to Brooklyn, New York during his youth. He attained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and earned both his masters and doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago. Becker initiated his teaching career as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1954 and during this period, he was influenced by the renown economist Milton Friedman. For a decade, he taught at Columbia University and returned to Chicago in 1970. He made a name for himself in the field, when he authored “The Economics of Discrimination” (1957) and followed this with “Human Capital” (1964). (bio by: C.S.)