Events

Events

Tom G. Palmer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and director of Cato University, the Institute's educational arm. Palmer is also the executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and is responsible for establishing operating programs in 14 languages and managing programs for a worldwide network of think tanks. Before joining Cato he was an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford University, and a vice president of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. He frequently lectures in North America, Europe, Eurasia, Africa, Latin America, India, China and throughout Asia, and the Middle East on political science, public choice, civil society, and the moral, legal, and historical foundations of individual rights.

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Jeffrey A. Miron is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. His area of expertise is the economics of libertarianism, with particular emphasis on the economics of illegal drugs. Miron has served on the faculty at the University of Michigan and as a visiting professor at the Sloan School of Management, M.I.T. and the Department of Economics, Harvard University. From 1992-1998, he was chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University. He is the author of Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition and The Economics of Seasonal Cycles. Miron received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Swarthmore College in 1979 and a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. in 1984.

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John Allison is the President and CEO of the Cato Institute. Prior to joining Cato, Allison was Chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, the 10th largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States. During his tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets. He was recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of the top 100 most successful CEOs in the world over the last decade. Allison has received the Corning Award for Distinguished Leadership, been inducted into the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Banker. He is a former Distinguished Professor of Practice at Wake Forest University School of Business, and serves on the Board of Visitors at the business schools at Wake Forest, Duke, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Allison is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his master's degree in management from Duke University, and is also a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking.

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Robert McDonald is associate professor of history at the United States Military Academy and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, Oxford University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned his Ph.D. A specialist on Thomas Jefferson and the early American republic, he has published several essays and articles in journals such as The Historian, Southern Cultures, and the Journal of the Early Republic. He is editor of Thomas Jefferson's Military Academy: Founding West Point (University of Virginia Press, 2004) and Light & Liberty: Thomas Jefferson and the Power of Knowledge (University of Virginia Press, forthcoming). He is completing a book to be titled Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Personality. He lives in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, with his wife, Christine, and their children Jefferson and Grace.

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B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies
Director, Center for Constitutional Studies
Roger Pilon is the founder and director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies, which has become an important force in the national debate over constitutional interpretation and judicial philosophy. He is the publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review and is an adjunct professor of government at Georgetown University through The Fund for American Studies. Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a National Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University's School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress. Pilon holds a B.A. from Columbia University, an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law.

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Jason Kuznicki has facilitated many of the Cato Institute's international publishing and educational projects. He is editor of Cato Unbound, and his ongoing interests include censorship, church-state issues, and civil rights in the context of libertarian political theory. He was an Assistant Editor of Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Prior to working at the Cato Institute, he served as a Production Manager at the Congressional Research Service. Kuznicki earned a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 2005, where his work was offered both a Fulbright Fellowship and a Chateaubriand Prize.

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Robert A. Levy is chairman of the Cato Institute's board of directors. He joined Cato as senior fellow in constitutional studies in 1997 after 25 years in business. He also sits on boards of the Institute for Justice, the Federalist Society, and the George Mason University School of Law. He founded CDA Investment Technologies, a major provider of financial information and software, and was its CEO until 1991. Levy clerked for Judge Royce C. Lamberth on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and for Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. From 1997 until 2004, Levy was an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University. He has written numerous articles on investments, law, and public policy. His latest book, co-authored with William Mellor, is The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom. Levy received his Ph.D. in business from the American University and his J.D. degree from the George Mason University School of Law.

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Malou Innocent is a Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute. She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and her primary research interests include Middle East and Persian Gulf security issues and U.S. foreign policy toward Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. She earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Mass Communications and Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from the University of Chicago.

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Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Times. Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. He holds a J.D. from Stanford University.

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Louise C. Bennetts is the associate director of financial regulation studies. She focuses on the impact of financial regulatory reform since 2008, including the attempts to address “too big to fail,” the effect of reforms on nonbank financial companies, the Volcker Rule and issues relating bank resolution and insolvency. Prior to joining Cato, she was a senior associate in the New York office of Davis Polk and Wardwell where she advised both banking and commercial clients on a wide range of corporate transactions, including leveraged lending, M&A transactions and bankruptcy-related advice. Most recently, her practice focused on bank regulation, in particular advising financial market participants on the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act and its implementation. Bennetts holds a first class honors degree in Economics and an LLB (cum laude) from the University of Cape Town, an MA from the University of the Witwatersrand and is a member of the New York Bar.

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Mary Anastasia O'Grady is a member of the editorial board at The Wall Street Journal and writes editorial columns on Latin America, trade and international economics. She is also editor of "The Americas," a weekly column that appears every Monday and deals with politics, economics and business in Latin America and Canada.

Under the direction of Tim Lynch, Cato's Project on Criminal Justice has become a leading voice in support of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties. His research interests include the war on terrorism, overcriminalization, the drug war, the militarization of police tactics, and gun control. In 2000, he served on the National Committee to Prevent Wrongful Executions. Lynch has also filed several amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving constitutional rights. He is the editor of In the Name of Justice: Leading Experts Reexamine the Classic Article “The Aims of the Criminal Law” and After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century. Lynch is a member of the Wisconsin, District of Columbia, and Supreme Court bars. He earned both a B.S. and a J.D. from Marquette University.

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David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute and has played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He is a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic issues such as education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz is the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981. He is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer, described by the Los Angeles Times as “a well-researched manifesto of libertarian ideas,” the editor of The Libertarian Reader, and coeditor of the Cato Handbook For Policymakers. His latest book is The Politics of Freedom.

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Dr. Rand Paul is the junior United States Senator for Kentucky. Elected in 2010, he has proven to be an outspoken champion for constitutional liberties and fiscal responsibility, and a warrior against government overreach. Among his first legislative proposals: cutting $500 billion in federal spending and a plan to balance the federal budget in just five years. He has since introduced similar bills with growing support. In the Senate, Rand serves on the Foreign Relations, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and Small Business Committees.

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