Brookings Mountain West, a collaboration between 51ԹϺ and the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC-based public policy think tank, announces its roster of visiting scholars for the spring 2024 semester. These experts will focus on timely policy issues surrounding American politics, workforce development, financial regulation, federal assistance programs, college access, and community-based planning.
Visiting scholars from Brookings engage with 51ԹϺ students and faculty in the classroom and in research projects, offer public lectures, and provide public policy expertise to local community, business, and political leaders.
We invite members of the 51ԹϺ community to request classroom presentations, one-on-one meetings, workshops, or department-specific gatherings with any of the visiting scholars by filling out this .
February 12-15: Elaine C. Kamarck
Elaine C. Kamarck is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program as well as the director of the at the Brookings Institution. She is an expert on American electoral politics and government innovation and reform in the United States, OECD nations, and developing countries. She focuses on the presidential nomination system and American politics and has worked in many American presidential campaigns. Kamarck has been a member of the Democratic National Committee and the DNC’s Rules Committee since 1997. She has participated actively in four presidential campaigns and in 10 nominating conventions — including two Republican conventions — and has served as a superdelegate to five Democratic conventions.
In the 1980s, she was one of the founders of the New Democrat movement that helped elect Bill Clinton president. She served in the White House from 1993 to 1997, where she created and managed the Clinton Administration’s National Performance Review, also known as the “reinventing government initiative.”
Kamarck conducts research on 21st century government, the role of the Internet in political campaigns, homeland defense, intelligence reorganization, and governmental reform and innovation. She is the author of Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates and Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again.
February 26-28: Martha Ross
Martha Ross is a senior fellow at Brookings Metro. Ross researches and writes about workers and the labor market, with a focus on creating a healthy economy that offers opportunity for all.
Ross’s recent work highlights low-wage workers, out-of-work young people and adults, the education and employment experiences of 18 to 24 year olds, and pathways to good jobs for young people.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Ross has written and spoken about the virus’ disproportionate impacts on low-wage workers and young adults, its effects on housing instability, and strategies to promote an equitable recovery.
Prior to joining Brookings, Ross was a presidential management fellow in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, where she focused on welfare policy. In 2007, Ross was detailed to the Council of the District of Columbia, focusing on local workforce development policy.
March 18-21: Aaron Klein
Aaron Klein is the Miriam K. Carliner Chair and a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, focused on financial technology and regulation; payments; macroeconomics; and infrastructure finance and policy.
Prior to joining Brookings in 2016, he directed the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative. Between 2009 and 2012, Klein served as the deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of Treasury. He worked on financial regulatory reform issues including crafting and helping secure passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. He also played leading roles on responding to the economic crisis, housing finance reform, transportation and infrastructure policy, and Native American policy.
Previously, Klein served as chief economist of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee for Chairmen Chris Dodd and Paul Sarbanes. He worked on numerous pieces of major legislation, including the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (aka TARP), Housing and Economic Recovery Act, and the SAFETEA Act of 2005 — re-writing America’s surface transportation system.
March 25-28: Lauren Bauer
Lauren Bauer is a fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and the associate director of The Hamilton Project. Her research focuses on social and safety net policies, particularly on federal nutrition assistance programs, education, the labor market, and the economic security of women and children.
Bauer is a member of the New York City Office of Community Schools Research Advisory Council and the Government Affairs and Public Policy Committee of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger. She has served in research positions with political campaigns and as a special assistant in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education.
April 8-11: Katharine Meyer
Katharine Meyer is a fellow in the Governance Studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Meyer focuses on how individuals access knowledge needed to make informed decisions about their postsecondary education opportunities — and how to build successful, scalable strategies to ensure greater access to that information.
Her current work explores how to support college retention and completion through virtual advising, the effect of school counselors on college access, and the design of state financial aid programs.
April 22-25: Tony Pipa
Tony Pipa is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution. Pipa launched and leads the , which seeks to modernize and transform U.S. policy to better enable equitable and sustainable development across rural America. He also launched and leads the , which explores the approach cities and local institutions are taking to solve local problems while driving progress on global policy and transnational issues.
Other research interests include city diplomacy and its influence on national foreign policy and multilateral institutions; the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance; and advancement of the SDGs in the U.S.
Pipa has three decades of executive leadership experience in the philanthropic and public sectors addressing poverty and advancing inclusive economic development in the U.S. and globally. He served as chief strategy officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development and held multiple senior policy positions at the agency. He also led the U.S. delegation at the U.N. to negotiate and adopt the SDGs, serving as U.S. special coordinator for the Post-2015 Agenda at the U.S. Department of State.
His work on the international stage built upon a legacy of philanthropic leadership to advance community and economic development.
While at the Triangle Community Foundation, he created one of the first programs nationwide focused on helping donor advisors maximize their philanthropic impact. He served as founding CEO of the Warner Foundation in Durham, North Carolina, focused on improving race relations and economic opportunity in the state, and subsequently helped launch the Foundation for Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. He has played a principal role in the start-up of multiple philanthropic ventures focused on addressing poverty and improving distressed communities.
For more information, visit Brookings Mountain West or the Brookings Public Policy Minor at 51ԹϺ.
