Charles Wheelan, Ph.D.

Charles Wheelan is a senior lecturer in the Harris School. He received an MPA from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School in 1993 and a PhD in public policy from the Harris School in 1998. Since then, he has served as the Midwest correspondent for The Economist, an economics and finance correspondent for WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and most recently as director of policy and communications for Chicago Metropolis 2020. He is also a visiting assistant professor at Dartmouth College during the summer quarter. In addition, Wheelan previously served as the speechwriter for Maine Governor John R. McKernan, Jr. He wrote Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (2002), which, according to the W.W. Norton catalog, "makes up for all of those Econ 101 lectures you slept through (or avoided) in college, demystifying key concepts, laying bare the truths behind the numbers, and answering those questions you have always been too embarrassed to ask." He is also the author of an introductory public policy textbook to be published by W.W. Norton and Company in 2010. In March of 2009, Wheelan ran unsuccessfully for Congress as the representative from the Illinois 5th District in the special election to replace Rahm Emanuel.