Susan Helper is the Frank Tracy Carlton Professor of Economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. She was formerly chief economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce and a member of the White House Staff. She has served as chair of the Economics Department, and has been a visiting scholar at University of Oxford, the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the globalization of supply chains, and on how U.S. manufacturing might be revitalized.  Helper received her B.A. from Oberlin College in economics, government, and Spanish and her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.