Akila Weerapana is Associate Professor of Economics at Wellesley College. He was born and raised in Sri Lanka and came to the United States to complete his undergraduate work at Oberlin College, where he earned a B.A. with highest honors in Economics and Computer Science in 1994. Inspired by his professors at Oberlin, he attended graduate school at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford in 1999, writing his dissertation in monetary economics under the mentorship of Dr. John Taylor. Having taught several classes at Stanford while he was a graduate student, Dr. Weerapana was determined to pursue a career as a liberal arts college professor, combining his… research interests with the opportunity to teach economics to gifted college students. Since 1999 Dr. Weerapana has taught more than 800 students at the Economics Department at Wellesley College. His teaching interests span all levels of the department's curriculum, including introductory and intermediate macroeconomics, international finance, monetary economics and mathematical economics. He was awarded Wellesley's Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2002. He has advised many students who have pursued graduate studies in economics or who have worked in economic research at the Federal Reserve. In addition to teaching, Dr. Weerapana's research interests focus on macroeconomics, specifically in the areas of monetary economics, international finance and political economy.