section_path: Early life and education
section_name: Early life and education
paragraph_text: Early life and education
  
  Mark Joseph Carney was born on March 16, 1965, at St. Ann's General Hospital in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and was raised in Edmonton, Alberta. He has three siblings: an older brother and sister, Seán and Brenda, and a younger brother, Brian. When Carney was six, his family moved to Edmonton, Alberta's Laurier Heights.
  
  He is the son of Verlie Margaret (née Kemper), a stay-at-home mother, and Robert James Martin Carney, a high school principal and Professor of Educational Foundations at the University of Alberta. His father was the Liberal candidate for Edmonton South in the 1980 Canadian federal election, placing second. His mother returned to university to pursue a career in education when Carney was ten. Three of his four grandparents were Irish, from Aughagower in County Mayo.
  
  Carney graduated in the class of 1983 from St. Francis Xavier High School, Edmonton, Alberta. From there, he went on to study at Harvard University with a partial scholarship and financial aid. During his Harvard years, he was backup goalie for the varsity ice hockey team and was a roommate of future NHL general manager Peter Chiarelli and former ice hockey player Mark Benning. He lived at Winthrop House, and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in economics magna cum laude.
  
  After Harvard, he travelled to Europe to study at the University of Oxford. There he undertook postgraduate studies at St Peter's College and Nuffield College, where he received Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degrees in economics in 1993 and 1995, respectively. His master's thesis was titled "Competitive advantage and the advantage of competition: a theoretical analysis of national champions, learning-by-doing and spillovers", and his doctoral thesis was titled "The dynamic advantage of competition". His doctoral advisor was Margaret Meyer. While at Oxford, he was co-captain of the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club alongside fellow Canadian David Lametti.
  
  In 2021, he was elected to Harvard University's Board of Overseers through to 2027. He resigned in early 2025, around the time he assumed leadership of the Liberal Party.