Former Deputy Treasury Secretary Raskin awarded distinguished professorship 

Sarah Bloom Raskin

Sarah Bloom Raskin, the former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Treasury and a visiting professor since 2020, has been named the Colin W. Brown Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law and will become faculty director of the Law School’s Global Financial Markets Center in January. 

An expert in financial regulation and monetary policy, Raskin has researched and taught at the Law School since 2017, when she joined Duke University’s Rubenstein Fellows Academy. She is also a senior fellow in the Duke Center on Risk. At Duke Law, Raskin teaches Business Associations and two upper-level seminars, Law and Financial Anxiety and Climate Change and Financial Markets.

“In addition to being a leading voice on the future of our financial system, Sarah Bloom Raskin is a dedicated teacher who cares deeply about her students,” said Kerry Abrams, James B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke Dean of the School of Law. “Having someone with her deep experience in government, expertise on financial policy and regulation, and national and international stature is an extraordinary opportunity for them and for Duke Law School.”

From 2014 to 2017, Raskin was the second-in-command at the Treasury Department, where she was known for her pursuit of innovative solutions to enhance Americans’ shared prosperity, the resilience of the country’s critical financial infrastructure, and the defense of consumer safeguards in the financial marketplace. She was a champion of cybersecurity in the financial sector both nationally and internationally, helping to elevate this issue with corporate executives and boards. Her efforts, including leading the development of the G-7 Fundamental Elements of Cybersecurity for the Financial Sector, contributed to a more secure and resilient financial sector in the face of increasingly frequent and sophisticated threats.

Earlier, Raskin was a governor of the Federal Reserve Board and a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, where she helped conduct the nation’s monetary policy and promote financial stability. She also served as commissioner of financial regulation for the State of Maryland from 2007 to 2010. She and her agency were responsible for regulating Maryland’s financial institutions during the height of the Great Recession.

As a Rubenstein Fellow, Raskin collaborated with faculty across the university to improve understanding of markets and regulation. She led an agenda focused on shaping a new relationship between regulation and resilience in financial markets and deepening understanding of the management of systemic risks from diverse sources such as financial instruments, cyber breaches, and climate events. She also mentored and advised undergraduate and graduate students on careers in the public sector, guest-lectured in courses, participated in public events, and led collaborative research projects.

She will take over directorship of the Global Financial Markets Center, which promotes the interdisciplinary study and discussion of global financial markets and financial regulation, from Lawrence Baxter, the David T. Zhang Professor of the Practice of Law. Baxter revitalized the center (formerly the Global Capital Markets Center) when he rejoined the faculty in 2009. Raskin has had a close affiliation with the center since arriving at Duke.

Raskin has been a part of two multidisciplinary research projects with center and Law School faculty through the university’s Bass Connections program and during her Rubenstein Fellowship also worked closely with the Rethinking Regulation program at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she currently is a member, with Baxter and Professor Gina-Gail Fletcher, of the Regenerative Crisis Response Committee, a group of leading experts in law, economics, and public policy focused on the use of fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies in a climate-transitioned economy.

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Magazine Cover, Fall 2021

Fall 2021
Volume 40 No. 2