Karyen Chu is Chief of Banking and Consumer Research in the FDIC’s Center for Financial Research. Karyen and her team conduct research on various topics of interest to the FDIC related to banks, depositors and consumers, and the banking system. Previously, Karyen was Chief of Consumer Research and Examination Analytics in the FDIC’s Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection.
Karyen has overseen the development and analysis of the biennial FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households since 2013. She has led qualitative research on consumer perceptions and banks’ efforts to serve unbanked and underbanked households, and has directed analyses of deposit flows at failed banks.
Prior to the FDIC, Karyen was a health policy researcher at Mathematica Policy Research where she worked on studies of Medicaid managed care and health care market changes. Karyen received her PhD in Economics and her Master in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Occidental College.