Ben Shalom. Bernanke was born on December 13, 1953 in Augusta, Georgia and was raised in Dillon, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Masters in Economics from Harvard University and a Ph.d in in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bernanke taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business and New York University. He was a professor of economics at Princeton University. He served as chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. Time magazine named him "Person of the Year" in 2009. Since leaving public servce he has changed his political affiliation from Republican to a moderate Independent. He and his wife Anna have two children.In 2015, his larest book, "The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath," became a New York Times bestseller.