Thursday, November 18th at 6 p.m.

National Building Museum

MARK J. MAZUR

Mark J. Mazur is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy in the U.S. Department of Treasury. Prior to returning to Treasury, Mazur was most recently the Robert C. Pozen Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, where he led the organization since 2017.

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Mazur has served in the federal government for more than 27 years. He was a policy economist at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation from 1989-1993. He then joined the Clinton administration where he served in a number of roles, including senior economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers; senior director at the National Economic Council; chief economist and senior policy adviser to the Secretary of Energy; director of the Policy Office at the U.S. Department of Energy; and Acting Administrator of the Energy Information Administration. In 2001 he became the Director of Research, Analysis, and Statistics at the Internal Revenue Service. 

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Mazur joined the Obama administration in 2009 as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis in Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy. In 2012 he was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, and he served in this role until early 2017.

Before entering public service, Mazur was an assistant professor in Heinz College at Carnegie-Mellon University. He has a bachelor’s degree in financial administration from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in economics and a PhD in business from Stanford University. A native of New Jersey, he now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

MICHAEL J. GRAETZ

Michael J. Graetz is the Columbia Alumni Professor of Tax Law and a leading expert on national and international tax law. He has written several books on federal domestic and international taxation, including a leading law school text, as well as books on the U.S. Supreme Court, energy policy, and social insurance, and roughly 90 articles on a wide range of tax, health policy, and social insurance issues. His most recent book, The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It (with Ian Shapiro), focuses on problems of economic insecurity and inequality and proposes realistic policy solutions and political strategies to make individuals and communities more secure.

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Graetz joined the Columbia Law School’s faculty in 2009 after holding faculty positions at Yale Law School for more than 25 years. Prior to his time at Yale, he was Professor of Law and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, and Professor of Law at the University of Southern California and the University of Virginia.

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In addition to his teaching career, Graetz has held several positions in the federal government. He was assistant to the secretary and special counsel for the Department of the Treasury in 1992, and deputy assistant secretary for tax policy from 1990 to 1991. He also served previously on the commissioner's advisory group for the Internal Revenue Service and in the Treasury Department’s office of tax legislative counsel.

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Graetz has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow and received an award from Esquire magazine for courses and work in connection with the provision of shelter for the homeless. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was also awarded the Daniel M. Holland Medal by the National Tax Association for outstanding contributions to the study and practice of public finance.

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Graetz earned his LL.B. from the University of Virginia and his B.B.A. from Emory University.