Advisory Board

Jason L. Furman, Co-Chair

Jason Furman is the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy, jointly at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard's Department of Economics. He serves as the Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. From 2013 to 2017, Furman served as the 28th Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, acting as President Obama's chief economist and a member of the cabinet, capping eight years as a top economic adviser in the Obama White House. His research and writing span U.S. and international macroeconomics, fiscal policy, labor markets, and competition policy.

A.B. '92, A.M. '95, Ph.D. '04

David I. Laibson, Co-Chair

David Laibson is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics and a Faculty Dean of Lowell House. Laibson’s research focuses on the topic of behavioral economics. Laibson is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard’s Pension Investment Committee, the Board of the Russell Sage Foundation and the advisory boards of the Social Science Genetics Association Consortium and the Consumer Finance Institute of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Laibson has served as the Chair of the Department of Economics at Harvard University and s a member of the Academic Research Council of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A.B. '88

Danielle S. Allen

Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn, a research lab focused on civic education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy as well as a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, tech ethicist, distinguished author, and mom. She is a contributing columnist at The Atlantic Magazine and was the 2020 winner of the Library of Congress’ Kluge Prize, which recognizes scholarly achievement in the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize.

A.M. '98, Ph.D. '01

Lanhee J. Chen

Lanhee J. Chen, PhD, is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and cochair of its Healthcare Policy Working Group. In addition to his academic appointments, Chen is a partner at the Brunswick Group, a global business advisory firm. He is also a presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed member of the Amtrak Board of Directors and a member and former chair of the Board of Directors at El Camino Health, an integrated health system in Northern California. As a candidate for California State Controller in 2022, he was the strongest-performing statewide Republican and won endorsements from every major newspaper in the state. He also advised numerous major campaigns, including four presidential efforts.

A.B. '99, A.M. '04, J.D. 07, Ph.D. '09

Lee C.H. Cheng

Lee Cheng is an attorney and civil rights activist with a long history of achievement in business, law and public policy. He is presently a Shareholder of Buchalter, based in the firm’s Orange County, California office, where he is a member of the Corporate, Intellectual Property and Litigation Practice Groups and the Chair of the Greater China Practice Group. Lee has been deeply involved in business and community groups, including the Board of the Atlantic Legal Foundation, the Board of Industry Leaders of the Consumer Technology Association (the largest technology focused trade association in the world and the operator of the Consumer Electronics Show) and the Board of Trustees of the CTA Foundation.

A.B. '93

Amy L. Chua

Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale Law School faculty in 2001 and is a noted expert in the areas of foreign policy, political tribalism, and ethnic conflict. Amy is the bestselling author of numerous books. Her 2011 memoir, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," was a runaway international bestseller that has been translated into 30 languages. Amy’s 2023 debut novel, "The Golden Gate," was nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. In 2011, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, one of The Atlantic Monthly’s Brave Thinkers, and one of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers.

A.B. '84, J.D. '87

Robert P. George

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He has served as chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and before that on the President’s Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). A graduate of Swarthmore College, he holds J.D. and M.T.S. degrees from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University.

J.D. '81

Jack Goldsmith is Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University. He is the author, most recently, of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency and In Hoffa’s Shadow: A Stepfather, A Disappearance in Detroit, and My Search for the Truth, as well as of other books and articles on many topics related to presidential power, terrorism, national security, international law, and internet law. Before coming to Harvard, Goldsmith served as Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from October 2003 through July 2004, and Special Counsel to the General Counsel to the Department of Defense from September 2002 through June 2003. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University, and a B.A. from Washington & Lee University.

Jack L. Goldsmith

Charles M. “Trey” Grayson

Trey Grayson is a partner of the Florence, Kentucky office of the law firm Frost Brown Todd. Trey served as a two-term Secretary of State for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The youngest secretary of state in the country at the time of his election, he served as President of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the Chair of the Republican Association of Secretaries of State. After, Trey served as the Director of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics from 2011-2014, before returning home to become President & CEO of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. He received an A.B. with honors from Harvard College and a JD/MBA from the University of Kentucky.

A.B. '94

Charles R. Kesler

Charles Kesler is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute, Editor of the Claremont Review of Books, host of Claremont’s The American Mind video series, and the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. Dr. Kesler also teaches in the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellows Program and Lincoln Fellows Program. He is the recipient of the prestigious 2018 Bradley Prize, a high honor bestowed upon distinguished individuals who have influenced American scholarship and debate. From September 2000 to March 2001, he served as vice chairman of the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Congress’s James Madison Commemoration Commission.

A.B. '75, A.M. '78, Ph.D. '85

Harvey C. Mansfield

Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Research Professor of Government, studies and teaches political philosophy. He has written on Edmund Burke and the nature of political parties, on Machiavelli and the invention of indirect government, in defense of a defensible liberalism and in favor of a Constitutional American political science. He was Chairman of the Government Department from 1973-1977, has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center. He won the Joseph R. Levenson award for his teaching at Harvard, received the Sidney Hook Memorial award from the National Association of Scholars, and in 2004 accepted a National Humanities Medal from the President.

A.B. '53, Ph.D. '61

Jennifer G. Newstead

Jennifer G. Newstead is senior vice president and general counsel at Apple, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Jennifer joined Apple from Meta, where she served as chief legal officer for six years. Before that, Jennifer served as the legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State, where she led the legal team responsible for advising the Secretary of State on legal issues affecting the conduct of U.S. foreign relations. Earlier in her career, she served as general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, as a principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice, and as special assistant to the President and associate White House counsel.

A.B. '91

Michael Oved

Michael Oved is a staff member on the Council of Economic Advisers, where he works to advance the economic policy goals of the Trump administration. He is also the founder and host of the entrepreneurship-focused 30 Years in 30 Minutes podcast. Michael served as President of the Harvard Republican Club, Chairman of the Conservative Coalition at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, President of the Harvard Undergraduate Real Estate Investment Group and Founder and Founder of the Harvard Venture Capital Group Entrepreneurship Summit. Michael graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Economics with honors in 2025.

A.B. '25

Kenneth R. Weinstein

Kenneth R. Weinstein is the Japan Chair at Hudson Institute. Dr. Weinstein was Hudson’s inaugural Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow from 2019 until 2023. From 2011 through 2020, Weinstein served as president and CEO of Hudson. In December 2019, he became the inaugural holder of the Walter P. Stern Chair. A political theorist by training whose academic work focused on the early Enlightenment, Dr. Weinstein has also served under the last four US administrations as a member of presidentially appointed commissions. In March 2020, he was nominated by President Trump to serve as US ambassador to Japan. His nomination was reported unanimously out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2020.

Ph.D. '92