Paul Samuelson

The first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, which he received in 1970 for raising “the level of scientific analysis in economic theory.” Samuelson’s areas of research included modern welfare economics, linear programming, Keynesian economics, economic dynamics, international trade theory, logic choice and maximization. He also authored a best-selling college economics textbook, "Economics: An Introductory Analysis", which teaches Keynesian principles.

Samuelson was born in 1915 in Indiana, earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard and began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age 25, where he spent his entire career and influenced a number of other Nobel laureates. He also served in various advisory roles to the U.S. government. Samuelson died in 2009.