Munnell to Step Down as Head of BC Retirement Research Center

Alicia Munnell, founding director of The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, will be stepping down from her role on December 31 after more than two decades of leadership, the Center announced Thursday. 

Deputy Director Andrew Eschtruth, who has been with the organization since 1999, will serve as the next CRR director, supported by senior researchers Jean-Pierre Aubry, Anqi Chen, Laura Quinby and Gal Wettstein. Munnell will remain as a senior adviser, according to the announcement.  

Chair of management sciences in Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, Munnell is known as “one of the nation’s most influential experts on retirement income policy,” the CRR wrote.  

Before working at Boston College, Munnell served as both a member of then President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and, prior to that, as assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy. Before joining the Clinton administration, she spent 20 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she became senior vice president and director of research. 

“Alicia Munnell is a distinguished economist whose scholarship has had a profound and lasting impact on strengthening the U.S. retirement system and household financial security throughout her career in government service and during her past quarter-century here at Boston College,” said Boston College Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley in a statement. “She arrived at Chestnut Hill with a compelling vision for her new center and went on to build the CRR into the nation’s leading research center on retirement policy. Her legacy includes the exceptional team she has created to carry on the CRR’s mission and her mentoring of a generation of scholars around the world who are refining our understanding of the economics of aging, retirement and lifelong financial health.” 

Eschtruth has helped the CRR grow from a small startup into a nationally recognized institution, earning a promotion to deputy director in March. He also has experience in managing relationships with donors and the media. Before joining the CRR, he worked in the U.S. Government Accountability Office as a policy analyst focused on the challenges posed by an aging population.  

The CRR’s senior researchers will also assume more responsibilities in shaping the center’s research program, as well as expanding development activities and mentoring junior researchers.  

“The CRR is in good hands.” Munnell said in a statement.  “I’m confident it will continue to thrive for decades to come.” 

Since it was established in 1998, the CRR has produced academic research and policy briefs to assist decisionmakers in both the public and private sectors on the issue of retirement security.