Dr. Lizabeth Cohen earned her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
She is the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department at Harvard University, as well as the Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She was the Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University from 2007 to 2008. She previously worked as a professor at New York University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Cohen, who has written numerous articles and essays, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her first book, MAKING A NEW DEAL: INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN CHICAGO, 1919-1939, for which she later won the Bancroft Prize and the Philip Taft Labor History Award. She wrote A CONSUMER’S REPUBLIC: THE POLITICS OF MASS CONSUMPTION IN POSTWAR AMERICA.

She has taught courses in 20th-century American history at Harvard, with a focus on the intersection of social and cultural life and politics. She now serves as the director of the Radcliffe Institute, a major center for scholarly research, creative arts, and public programs.