Lisa D. Cook
former research fellow

Expertise: Economics of innovation, financial institutions and markets (Africa, Russia, Eastern and Central Europe), and economic history

Lisa D. Cook was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who came from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as a national fellow during the 2002–3 academic year.

She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and joined Harvard University in 1997.

Her current research interests include the economics of innovation, financial institutions and markets (Africa, Russia, Eastern and Central Europe), and economic history.

Cook is the author of a number of published articles, contributions to the Hoover Digest, working papers, and chapters in several books. She also has edited and contributed to the Harvard-World Economic Forum Global and Africa Competitiveness Reports.

She was senior adviser on finance and development at the Treasury Department and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow from 2000 to 2001.

With Jeffrey Sachs, she advised President Obasanjo of Nigeria and the minister of finance of Rwanda on macroeconomic policy from 1999 to 2000 and 1998 to 2000, respectively.

She has appeared on ABC on Air and The Tavis Smiley Show discussing debt relief for African countries and the lessons to be gained from postconflict economies in Africa that can be used in the reinvigoration of Iraq.