Elizabeth Currid-Halkett holds the James Irvine Chair in Urban and Regional Planning and is professor of public policy at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy. She is the author of The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art and Music Drive New York City (Princeton University Press 2007); Starstruck: The Business of Celebrity (Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) and The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class (Princeton University Press, 2017), which was named one of the best books of the year by The Economist. Her books have been published in multiple languages.

Currid-Halkett’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Salon, the Economist, the New Yorker, and the Times Literary Supplement, among others. She has contributed to a variety of academic and mainstream publications including the Journal of Economic Geography, Economic Development Quarterly, the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the New York Times, and the Harvard Business Review.

In 2022, Currid-Halkett was awarded the Kluge Chair in Modern Culture at the Library of Congress. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network and formerly a member of the WEF Global Future Councils and Industry Strategy Officers.

Currid-Halkett is currently writing looking at how culture and the politics of culture influence the current perceived geographic and class divisions in American society. Her book is forthcoming with Basic Books in 2023. Currid-Halkett received her PhD in urban planning from Columbia University.