Understanding the Effects of Technology on Economics and Governance

Drew Endy

Science Fellow/Senior Fellow (courtesy)

Drew Endy is a science fellow and senior fellow (courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. He leads Hoover’s Bio-Strategy and Leadership effort, which focuses on keeping increasingly biotic futures secure, flourishing, and democratic. Professor Endy also researches and teaches bioengineering at Stanford University, where he is the Martin Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, senior fellow (courtesy) of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and faculty codirector of degree programs for the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

Professor Endy helped launch new undergraduate majors in bioengineering at both MIT and Stanford and the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, which involves thousands of students annually. Endy has served on the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Science, Technology, and Law; the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Synthetic Biology Task Force; and, briefly, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. He currently serves on the World Health Organization’s Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research; the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Global Forum on Technology’s synthetic biology task force; and the Defense Science Board’s Emerging Biotechnology and National Security Task Force. Endy earned his PhD from Dartmouth in biotechnology and biochemical engineering and has been recognized in Esquire magazine as one of the seventy-five most influential people of the twenty-first century.

Lee Ohanian

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

Lee E. Ohanian is a senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and a professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

He is associate director of the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he codirects the research initiative Macroeconomics across Time and Space. He is also a fellow in the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory.

His research focuses on economic crises, economic growth, and the impact of public policy on the economy. Ohanian is coeditor of Government Policies and Delayed Economic Recovery (Hoover Institution Press, 2012). He is an adviser to the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and St. Louis, has previously advised other Federal Reserve banks, foreign central banks, and the National Science Foundation, and has testified to national and state legislative committees on economic policy. He is on the editorial boards of Econometrica and Macroeconomic Dynamics. He is a frequent media commentator and writes for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Investor’s Business Daily. He has won numerous teaching awards at UCLA and the University of Rochester.

He previously served on the faculties of the Universities of Minnesota and Pennsylvania and as vice president at Security Pacific Bank. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his PhD in economics from the University of Rochester.

Douglas Rivers

Senior Fellow

Douglas Rivers is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University. He is also the Chief Scientist at YouGov PLC, a global polling firm.

John B. Taylor

George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics

John B. Taylor is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He chairs the Hoover Working Group on Economic Policy, co-chairs the Hoover Technology, Economics and Governance Working Group, and is director of Stanford’s Introductory Economics Center.

Taylor's fields of expertise are monetary policy, fiscal policy, and international economics. His book Getting Off Track was one of the first on the financial crisis; his latest book, First Principles, for which he received the 2012 Hayek Prize, develops an economic plan to restore America’s prosperity. His most recent book is Choose Economic Freedom: Enduring Policy Lessons from the 1970s and 1980s with George P. Shultz.

Taylor served as senior economist on President Ford's and President Carter’s Council of Economic Advisers, as a member of President George H. W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and as a senior economic adviser to Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000, and to John McCain’s presidential campaign. He was a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 2001. From 2001 to 2005, Taylor served as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs where he was responsible for currency markets, international development, for oversight of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and for coordinating policy with the G-7 and G-20.

Taylor received the Bradley Prize from the Bradley Foundation and the Adam Smith Award as well as the Adolph G. Abramson Award from the National Association for Business Economics. He was awarded the Alexander Hamilton Award for his overall leadership at the US Treasury, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award for designing and implementing the currency reforms in Iraq, and the Medal of the Republic of Uruguay for his work in resolving the 2002 financial crisis. At Stanford he was awarded the George P. Shultz Distinguished Public Service Award, as well as the Hoagland Prize and the Rhodes Prize for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society; he formerly served as vice president of the American Economic Association.

Taylor received the 2016 Adam Smith Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the 2015 Truman Medal for Economic Policy for extraordinary contribution to the formation and conduct of economic policy.

Taylor formerly held positions as professor of economics at Princeton University and Columbia University. Taylor received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1968 and a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1973.

John Villasenor

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

John Villasenor was a senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and is also on the faculty at UCLA, where he is a professor of electrical engineering, public policy, law, and management. Villasenor’s work considers the technology, policy, and legal issues arising from key technology trends, including the growth of artificial intelligence and the increasing complexity and interdependence of today’s networks and systems.

He has published in the Atlantic, Billboard, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Fast Company, Forbes, the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, the Washington Post, and many academic journals. He has also provided congressional testimony on multiple occasions on topics including privacy and intellectual property law.

Before joining the faculty at UCLA, Villasenor was with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he developed methods of imaging the earth from space. He holds a BS from the University of Virginia and an MS and PhD from Stanford University. Villasenor is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford.

Amy Zegart

Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow

Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The author of five books, she specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management.

Zegart's award-winning research includes the leading academic study of intelligence failures before 9/11: Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton, 2007). Her most recent book is the bestseller Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence (Princeton, 2022), which was nominated by Princeton University Press for the Pulitzer Prize. She also coauthored Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity, with Condoleezza Rice (Twelve, 2018) and coedited Bytes, Bombs, and Spies: The Strategic Dimensions of Offensive Cyber Operations with Herbert Lin (Brookings, 2019). Her op-eds and essays have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

Zegart has advised senior officials about intelligence and foreign policy for more than two decades. She served on the National Security Council staff and as a presidential campaign foreign policy advisor and has testified before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

In addition to conducting research and teaching, she led Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, founded the Stanford Cyber Policy Program, and served as chief academic officer of the Hoover Institution. Before coming to Stanford, she was professor of public policy at UCLA and a McKinsey & Company consultant.

She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, the American Political Science Association’s Leonard D. White Dissertation Prize, and research grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Hewlett Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Zegart received an AB in East Asian studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard and an MA and a PhD in political science from Stanford. She serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, and the American Funds/Capital Group.