Steven Pearlstein is a business and economics columnist who writes about local, national and international topics. He joined the Post in 1988 as deputy business editor, and has been defense industry reporter, economic correspondent and Canadian correspondent. He is also moderator of the Post’s On Leadership site. In the fall of 2011, he will become the Robinson Professor of Political and International Affairs at George Mason University. Pearlstein was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2008 for columns anticipating and explaining the global financial crisis. In 2011, he won a Gerald R. Loeb Lifetime Achievement award. Pearlstein grew up in Brookline, Mass., and graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. He lives in Washington with his wife, Wendy Gray.