Peter Blair

Dr. Peter Q. Blair is the incoming Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and the Sloan School of Management at MIT and Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University, where he co-directs the Harvard Project on Workforce. He is also a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Principal Investigator of BE-Lab. During the Biden-Harris presidential transition, Blair served as an economist with the Council of Economic Advisers. 

Blair’s research examines how education and labor market institutions shape economic opportunity, workforce mobility, and inequality. His scholarship spans labor economics, education, workforce development, occupational licensing, skills-based hiring, and the future of work. His work has appeared in the Review of Economics and Statistics and has been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Washington Post, and Freakonomics.

Among his most influential contributions is research on workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs)—individuals who develop valuable skills through work experience and other pathways outside the bachelor’s degree.  This research has shaped the national conversation on skills-based hiring, informing federal policy, legislative reforms in more than thirty states, and inspiring the Ad Council’s national “Tear the Paper Ceiling” campaign.

Blair received his Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, his M.Sc. in Theoretical Physics from Harvard University, and his B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Duke University.

Outside of academia, Blair is active in his local church community and enjoys mentoring students and entrepreneurs. He is the youngest of his parents’ seven sons and got his start learning about markets by selling fruit and vegetables alongside his brothers in the Nassau Straw Market in the Bahamas.