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James Heckman

Age: 69

Occupation: Professor of economics, University of Chicago

Last year, President Obama announced the White House’s support of universal pre-K. Then the new mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, ran on an identical idea. And Hillary Clinton, likely the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, recently launched an initiative for early childhood education. Heckman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist, crystallized the research behind the movement.