Indian American Ganesh Sitaraman to Lead Policy Accelerator for Political Economy at Vanderbilt

Ganesh Sitaraman will lead the newly launched Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation at Vanderbilt University. The policy accelerator will be based in the Law School and is part of Discovery Vanderbilt, a groundbreaking initiative to bolster innovative research and education at the university. Sitaraman is currently the New York alumni chancellor’s chair at Vanderbilt Law School and a professor of Law. 

Sitaraman brings extensive experience in politics and public policy and will collaborate with peers within Vanderbilt Law School and across the university. In a statement, he said he is “honored” to lead the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. “We plan to cultivate, grow and spread innovative research and policy ideas—and at a rapid pace that aligns with the urgency of the challenges we face.”

According to Provost C. Cybele Raver, “Discovery Vanderbilt provides the resources and support to empower cutting-edge research that can make a significant impact locally and globally.”

Sitaraman joined Vanderbilt in 2011, according to a university press release. Before that, he was he Public Law Fellow and a lecturer at Harvard Law School, a visiting assistant professor at Yale Law School, a research fellow at the Counterinsurgency Training Center – Afghanistan in Kabul, and a law clerk for Judge Stephen F. Williams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He’s a recipient of the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Chancellor’s Award for Research and a Chancellor’s Faculty Fellowship. 

He is the author or co-author of five books, including “The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution,” a 2017 New York Times Notable Book, and most recently “Networks, Platforms & Utilities.” He serves on the Administrative Conference of the United States, the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee and the boards of The American Prospect and the American Constitution Society. A senior adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren during her presidential campaign and her senior counsel in the U.S. Senate, his work at the nexus of ideas, politics and public policy has led to profiles in The New York Times and Politico, the university press release said. 

An Eagle Scout and a Truman Scholar, he earned his A.B. in government magna cum laude from Harvard College, a master’s degree in political thought from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.