He graduated from Townsend Harris High School and then earned a Bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1940. At Columbia University, he received a Master's degree in 1941. From 1946 to 1949 he spent his time partly as a graduate student at Columbia and partly as a research associate at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics at the University of Chicago. During that time he also held the rank of Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. In 1951 he earned his Ph.D. from Columbia. He is currently the Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus at Stanford University. He was one of the recipients of the 2004 National Medal of Science, the nation's highest scientific honor, presented by President George W. Bush for his contributions to research on the problem of making decisions using imperfect information and his research on bearing risk. Ken Arrow's impact on the economics profession has been tremendous. For more than fifty years he has been one of the most listened to of all practicing economists.