Who Are Caroline Ellison’s MIT Economist Parents?

Key Takeaways

• Caroline Ellison has been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the FTX-Alameda fraud case.
• Ellison was accompanied in court by her family.
• Glenn and Sara Fisher Ellison are both members of the MIT Economics faculty.

Caroline Ellison’s sentencing for fraud charges on Tuesday, Sept. 24, has thrown the former Alameda Research CEO back into the spotlight more than a year after she testified as a key witness in the trial that brought down Sam Bankman-Fried.

Present at the courthouse were Ellison’s two younger sisters and parents, who watched on as Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced her to two years in federal prison.

Sara and Glenn Ellison Bear Witness to Daughter’s 2-Year Sentence

 The harsher-than-expected sentence will be a disappointment for Glenn and Sara Fisher Ellison. 

Although her lawyers requested no prison time and prosecutors recommended a lenient sentence due to her extensive cooperation in the case against Bankman-Fried, New York sentencing rules mean Ellison must serve at least two-thirds of her sentence and won’t be eligible for parole until March 2026.

However, Judge Kaplan did grant Ellison’s request to serve her time at a facility close to her family in Boston. 

Caroline Ellison’s Economist Parents

Both Ellisons are employed at the MIT Department of Economics. Mrs. Ellison is a senior lecturer, and Mr. Ellison is a professor who has completed two terms as Head of the Department.

Glenn’s research interests include theoretical and empirical topics in game theory, industrial organization, education, finance, economic geography, and academia.

His publications span topics such as tax, technology, market dynamics, and more niche interests, such as the gender gap in secondary school mathematics . He has also published the “Hard Math” series of educational textbooks for elementary and middle school students.

Meanwhile, Sara Fisher Ellison’s research mostly focuses on e-commerce and the pharmaceutical industry.

Her work on the pharmaceutical industry includes different perspectives on supply and demand dynamics, while her e-commerce research mostly explores how the internet affects market competition and prices.

Shared Research Interests

On occasion, the two economists have co-authored papers together, including  “Lessons About Markets From the Internet” in 2005 and “Search and Obfuscation in a Technologically Changing Retail Environment” in 2018.

In their most recent academic collaboration, the Ellisons explored the impact of home rental websites like Airbnb, which they argued may increase social welfare by allowing more intensive property use but also potentially exacerbate primary housing shortages. 

While they have been photographed at various points since their daughter was charged with fraud , the Ellisons have mostly avoided journalists and refused to answer questions.