Robert C. Merton, Nobel Prize-winning economist and finance professor, and Nancy Gerrie, a veteran ERISA attorney, have been selected to receive lifetime achievement awards by the Plan Sponsor Council of America.
The awards will be presented during the PSCA's national conference April 28-29 in Phoenix, said Tobi Davis, PSCA's director of operations.
The lifetime achievement awards have been granted each year since 2014 — excluding 2021 because the conference was virtual due to the pandemic — for those who have provided "meritorious service for a prolonged period of time" in areas such as public policy, industry best practices and innovation, according to the PSCA.
Ms. Gerrie recently retired as the co-chairwoman of the employee benefits and executive compensation practice and the retirement plans group at Winston & Strawn LLP, Chicago.
In recognizing her more than 30 years of retirement and employee benefits legal work, the PSCA said her clients "describe her as practical and innovative as well as gifted at explaining complex ERISA matters," according to a description of her accomplishments to be presented at the national conference.
Mr. Merton "has been passionate about the efficient design of retirement systems in both his research and education," the PSCA said in honoring his work.
Mr. Merton is the distinguished professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., and the John and Natty McArthur University professor emeritus at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
He shared the 1997 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with finance professor Myron S. Scholes for developing a formula to evaluate stock options.
