Heidi Irmgard Victoria Hartmann (born August 14, 1945) is an American feminist economist who is founder and president emerita of the Washington-based Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), a research organization created to conduct women-centered, public policy research. She retired from her position as President and CEO in 2019. Hartmann is an expert on the intersection of women, economics and public policy. She is also a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute, a research fellow at the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and editor of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.

Early life

Hartmann was born in 1945 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the daughter of German parents Henry Leopold Hartmann and Hedwig (Bercher) Hartmann. Raised in Toms River, New Jersey, she graduated in 1963 from Toms River High School (since renamed as Toms River High School South) and was inducted into the district's hall of fame in 1989. She attended Swarthmore College, where she received a B.A. in economics with honors in 1967. Hartmann then attended Yale University, where she received a M. Phil. in economics in 1972 and a PhD in the subject in 1974.

Awards and honors

In 1994, Hartmann was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship Award—a five-year grant from the MacArthur Foundation given to individuals who show exceptional creativity for their research and the prospect for more in the future—for her work on women and economics. She is also the recipient of two honorary degrees.

Personal life

In 1967, she married Frank Blair Cochran, with whom she shares a daughter, Jessica Lee Cochran, then divorced a year later. In 1979, she married John Varick Wells and had two daughters—Katherine Lina Hartman Wells and Laura Cameron Hartmann Wells.

Selected bibliography