Speakers

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Historian Donald Davidson is believed to be the only full-time historian employed at any race track in the world.

A passionate interest in the "500" since his early teens irresistibly drew the English-born-and-raised Davidson to the Speedway for a three-week visit in May 1964. Having committed to memory a plethora of trivial details during the seven years it took for him to save up for the trip, he was able to delight both active and retired participants with year-by-year recitations of their careers.

Joel Elvery is a policy economist in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Dr. Elvery’s primary fields of interest are labor, public, and urban economics. In particular, he studies the regional economy of the Fourth Federal Reserve District, which includes Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. A self-professed data geek, he enjoys turning data into information.

Prior to joining the Bank in 2013, Dr. Elvery was an assistant professor in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Before that, he held the position of research economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington DC. He also worked as a social science analyst at the US Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies.

Dr. Elvery holds a BA in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a PhD in economics from the University of Maryland.