Lansing Sun

Michigan State University (MSU) economist and professor Lisa Cook has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

In a Jan. 14 release by MSU Today, Cook expressed gratitude toward Biden, stating if confirmed, she would be honored to serve. 

“Lisa Cook is a remarkable economist and leader who will serve our nation well,” MSU President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. told MSU Today. “Her nomination embodies the excellence of our Spartan faculty as she is well on her way to shatter another glass ceiling as the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.”

Cook is currently a professor in the MSU College of Social Science’s Department of Education and a professor of international relations in the university’s James Madison College. 

Since beginning at MSU in 2005, Cook has established herself as an renowned economist nationwide. Most recently, she was elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago —a position which will be cut short if confirmed as a Federal Reserve governor, the release states. 

“Among the nation’s foremost public intellects in economic growth and development, innovation and financial institutions and markets, Professor Cook brings to the Federal Reserve a deep theoretical and practical framework for thinking and acting," MSU Provost Teresa Woodruff told MSU Today. "Dr. Cook’s scholarship and teaching have created a distinctive Michigan State University framework for economic development and we wish her well.”

The Federal Reserve System consists of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the central bank of the United States, and 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, MSU Today reports. With the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, they conduct the country’s monetary policy with the purpose of maintaining stability in the nation’s financial system

If confirmed as Federal Reserve governor, Cook will be the first Black woman to serve on the board in its 108-year history, the release states. The first Black man to serve on the board was Andrew Brimmer, an assistant professor at MSU’s Department of Economics from 1958 to 1961.