Lisa D. Cook is a former member of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s Steering Committee and a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Prior to her appointment to the Board, she was a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. Cook is the first African American woman and first woman of color to sit on the Board. Prior to her work at Michigan State University, she was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, deputy director for Africa research at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, and a national fellow at Stanford University. Cook was the first Marshall Scholar from Spelman College and received a second B.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University. She earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, with fields in macroeconomics and international economics.