Julie Heath

Julie Heath

Alpaugh Family Economics Center, Executive Director

Dr. Heath is the Director of the Economics Center at the University of Cincinnati and past-President of the National Association of Economic Educators.

  • Prior to coming to UC, Dr. Heath spent 26 years at the University of Memphis.
  • She received a Visiting Research Fellowship to Princeton University to conduct research in economics education and has published extensively in the area.
  • She is the author or co-author of over 40 academic articles.
  • She received a Rockefeller Foundation grant to study women and poverty.
  • She was named the Carnegie Foundation U.S. Professor of the Year Award for Tennessee, and received the economics discipline’s highest award, the Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award.
  • She was named the 2006 Financial Educator of the Year by the Tennessee Bankers Association.
  • Dr. Heath started the Smart Tennessee program, a statewide financial literacy program for K-8 students, the first statewide program in the country. She has continued that work, establishing the $martOhio program in 2014.
  • Dr. Heath received her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of South Carolina.
  • She was a member of the national Board of Directors of the Council for Economic Education and is a member of the Economics Standing Committee of the National Assessment of Education Progress.
  • Dr. Heath led the two national committees charged by the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability with integrating financial literacy in the Common Core.
  • She was named as a Money Magazine “Money Hero” for August, 2013.
  • Dr. Heath received the Alumni Professional Achievement Award from Bluffton University, 2012.
  • She was named a “Woman of Influence” by Venue and LEAD magazines, Cincinnati, 2014.
  • She was named a “Woman of Achievement” by the Girl Scouts in 2016.
  • Since coming to Ohio in 2012, Dr. Heath has started a Smart Ohio program that has trained over 900 elementary teachers in the state.
  • Dr. Heath received a Pillar Award for Executive Director of the Year from Medical Mutual, 2019.
  • Dr. Heath served as a Visiting Scholar for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for 2019.