Biographies

Lisa D. Cook, Board Member, Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Lisa D. Cook took office as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on May 23, 2022, to fill an unexpired term ending January 31, 2024. She was reappointed to the Board on September 8, 2023, and sworn in on September 13, 2023, for a term ending January 31, 2038.

Prior to her appointment to the Board, Dr. Cook was a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. From 2018 to 2021, she was director of the American Economic Association Summer Training Program. She was also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Previously, Dr. Cook was on the faculty of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. During her time at Harvard, Dr. Cook also served as deputy director for Africa Research at the Center for International Development. Before then, she was a National Fellow at Stanford University.

From 2011 to 2012, Dr. Cook served as a senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. From 2000 to 2001, she served as a senior adviser on finance and development in the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of International Affairs.

Dr. Cook received a BA in philosophy from Spelman College. As a Marshall Scholar, she received a second BA in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University. She earned a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Susan M. Collins, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Susan M. Collins is president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, which is part of the U.S. central bank. She is a participant on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets U.S. monetary policy. Collins, who took office in 2022, oversees all the Boston Fed’s activities, including economic research and analysis, banking supervision and financial stability efforts, community economic development activities, and a wide range of payments, technology, and finance initiatives. Collins is a widely published international macroeconomist with a lifelong interest in policy and its impact on living standards. She began her career on the economics department faculty at Harvard University and then spent many years dividing her time as a professor of economics at Georgetown University and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Prior to leading the Boston Fed, Collins spent 15 years at the University of Michigan, most recently serving as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics. She previously served for a decade as the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the university’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Collins earned a PhD in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her undergraduate degree at Harvard.

Luis Felipe Céspedes, Board Member, Central Bank of Chile

Luis Felipe Céspedes is a member of the Board of the Central Bank of Chile since February 2022.

He holds a degree in Business Administration and Economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a PhD in Economics from New York University.

Between March 2014 and August 2017, he was Minister of Economy, Development, and Tourism of Chile.

From 2009 to 2011 he was Manager of Economic Research at the Central Bank of Chile. Between 2006 and 2009 he served as Economic Policy Coordinator and Chief of Advisors of the Ministry of Finance of Chile. Previously, he was Senior Economist of the Economic Research Management of the Central Bank of Chile and Economist of the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund. Between 1995 and 1997 he was an advisor to the Ministry of Finance.

Between 2012 and 2014 he was a Senior Advisor to the Technical Investment Council, a body in charge of making reports, proposals and statements regarding the investments of Chile's pension funds. In 2010 he was a member of the Trend GDP Committee of the Chilean Ministry of Finance, a committee of independent experts that provides inputs for the estimation of trend Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a key parameter for estimating the structural income of the Chilean Central Government.

Moderator: Egon Zakrajšek, Executive Vice President and Director of Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Egon Zakrajšek is an executive vice president and the director of the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Among Zakrajšek’s primary responsibilities is oversight of the work of the research department, including economic analysis for the monetary policy deliberations of the Bank’s president and board of directors.

Zakrajšek’s policy and research interests focus on macro-finance, banking, inflation dynamics, and monetary policy. His research has been published in a variety of academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Monetary Economics, and The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Previously, Zakrajšek was a senior advisor in the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. He began his career in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and later joined the division of Monetary Affairs at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC. He holds a PhD in economics from New York University.