Carolyn Shaw Bell (June 21, 1920 – May 13, 2006) was the Katharine Coman professor in economics at Wellesley College[2] known for her mentorship of her own students' careers,[1] as well as mentorship of female economists more broadly, through the efforts of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, of which she was founding chair.

She completed her doctorate at the London School of Economics in 1949, and, newly divorced and the mother of a young daughter, returned to live with her parents.

[3] Bell retired from teaching in 1989, due to hearing loss, but continued writing columns for The Boston Globe[5] until the year 2000.

[3] After a group of graduate students, including Francine Blau and Heidi Hartmann, demanded to know why so few female economists were on the program for the American Economic Association Annual Meetings in 1971, Bell undertook a survey of all the employed female members of the AEA who had completed their graduate degrees at least ten years prior, to demonstrate to AEA president Kenneth Arrow the number of female economists willing and able to present papers at these meetings.

1998: Alice M. Rivlin 1999: Sandra Ohrn Moose 2000: Eva Mueller 2001: Marianne Ferber 2002: Margaret Garritsen de Vries 2003: Robin L. Bartlett 2004: Barbara Bergmann 2005: Claudia Goldin 2006: Barbara Fraumeni 2007: Olivia S. Mitchell 2008: Anne Carter 2009: Elizabeth E. Bailey 2010: Elizabeth Hoffman 2011: Sharon Oster 2012: Catherine C. Eckel 2013: Rachel McCulloch 2014: Hilary Hoynes 2015: Janet Currie 2016: Cecilia Rouse 2017: Rachel Croson 2018: Rohini Pande 2019: Yan Chen 2020: Nancy Rose 2021: Joyce P. Jacobsen 2022: Martha Bailey 2023: Kaye Husbands Fealing 2024: Sandra Black