Women in Economics: Diane Swonk

“I may be dyslexic and I can’t read very well. I flip numbers, but I can do calculus in my head,” says Diane Swonk, chief economist and managing director at accounting firm Grant Thornton, as she discusses how her learning disability became a strength. She also discusses how growing up during the economic “demise” of Detroit in the 1970s and 1980s helped show her how economics could have made a difference. “The economics I was learning explained it could have been avoided. And the reality that I could make a difference in this work and people’s lives, that this was really about human behavior, policy and interpreting how to make it better for the world—I was hooked that first class.”