AnnaLee Saxenian is professor and dean of UC Berkeley's School of Information and has a joint faculty appointment with the Department of City and Regional Planning. Professor Saxenian has made a career of studying regional economics and the conditions under which people, ideas, and geographies combine and connect into hubs of economic activity. She is a member of Board of Advisors at the National Science Foundation, and Directorate for Social, and Behavioral & Economic Sciences since 2009. She served as a consultant at the Center on Transnational Corporations of United Nations in New York. Professor Saxenian holds a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, a master's in regional planning from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in economics from Williams College.