Sigridur Benediktsdottir GRD ’05, assistant chair and lecturer in the Economics Department, has been appointed to lead the financial stability division of the Central Bank of Iceland. Her appointment was announced Tuesday morning.

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Benediktsdottir, a macroeconomist whose research focuses on financial markets, has taught at Yale since 2007. She will still teach courses in the spring, but will leave Yale at the end of this academic year to assume her new role at the central bank, Economics Department Chair Benjamin Polak said.

This will not be Benediktsdottir’s first time involved in economics affairs in Iceland: after the nation’s three largest banks collapsed in the fall of 2008 and triggered a financial crisis, Benediktsdottir served on an investigative commission in Iceland to identify the causes of the crash.

“She’ll be in charge of trying to stabilize Iceland’s economy and the major decisions they have to make,” Polak said. “She has been a huge success at Yale, and I’m sure she’ll do a fantastic job in Iceland,” he added.

Benediktsdottir declined to comment.

CLARIFICATION: Oct. 19, 2011

A quotation in a previous version of this post incorrectly implied that Benediktsdottir could help decide whether Iceland should adopt the euro, which is not a decision that rests with the Central Bank.