Roosevelt Institute Welcomes Dr. Saule Omarova as Senior Fellow

NEW YORK, NY — The Roosevelt Institute is pleased to announce Dr. Saule Omarova, a distinguished law and finance scholar and the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law at Cornell University, as the newest senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Supporting the work of the Industrial Policy and Trade project of Roosevelt’s Climate and Economic Transformation Program, Dr. Omarova’s research will focus on structuring a democratically accountable, 21st-century industrial policy.

“The keys to a successful American industrial policy are ensuring it is governed well, is sustainably financed, and reshapes industries to meet the biggest challenges we face,” said Todd N. Tucker, Director, Industrial Policy and Trade at the Roosevelt Institute. “From her early political science work on the fossil fuel industry to her substantial legal writing on industrial policies for the finance sector, Dr. Omarova is an intellectual giant in political economy who has made, and will continue to make, invaluable contributions across all these dimensions.” 

Dr. Omarova has been a longtime partner of the Roosevelt Institute. In 2013, she authored a chapter of An Unfinished Mission: Making Wall Street Work for Us, a report co-authored by the Roosevelt Institute and Americans for Financial Reform that examines the crucial problems and big decisions of the Dodd-Frank Act implementation. And in late 2020, Omarova joined several Roosevelt Institute scholars for an American Prospect forum that discussed her proposal to reboot the New Deal–era Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) as a “public option for private equity” that would help drive a new industrial policy mission of good jobs and decarbonization.

“I am honored to join the Roosevelt Institute, which is the natural home for fresh thinking about productively restructuring industries from finance to manufacturing,” said Dr. Omarova. “One of the best ways we can honor the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is by updating their political and economic strategies to tackle the challenges of today’s world of globalized supply chains, hyper-financialization, and political polarization. I’m ready to dig in.”

Dr. Omarova joins other distinguished Senior Fellows at the Roosevelt Institute including, Deepak Bhargava, William Darity, Darrick Hamilton, and Joseph Stiglitz. 

About the Roosevelt Institute

The Roosevelt Institute is a think tank, a student network, and the nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum that, together, are learning from the past and working to redefine the future of the American economy. Focusing on corporate and public power, labor and wages, and the economics of race and gender inequality, the Roosevelt Institute unifies experts, invests in young leaders, and advances progressive policies that bring the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor into the 21st century.