The following is a brief introduction to US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, who will be co-chairing with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan the "Economic Track" of the first round of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), which is to be held in Washington, D.C. from July 27 to 28.

Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 18, 1961. Following his father, a government official in charge of international development affairs, Geithner spent his childhood both in and outside the United States. After earning a high school diploma in Bangkok, Thailand, he returned to the United States and attended Dartmouth College, graduating with a B.A. in government and Asian studies in 1983. He earned an M.A. in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University in 1985. He has studied Chinese and Japanese.

After completing his studies, Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, D.C., for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the US Treasury Department in 1988, where he worked in three administrations for five Secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions.

He served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1999 to 2001 under Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.

He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 until 2003.

Before his nomination to the Treasury in November, 2008 by president-elect Barack Obama, Geithner served as the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he began on November 17, 2003.

On January 26, 2009, Geithner was sworn in as the 75th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

He and his wife, Carole Sonnenfeld Geithner, have two children.

(Xinhua News Agency July 27, 2009)