Peter cowhey

Peter Cowhey
Dean and Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Communication and Technology Policy
Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego

Cowhey is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and technology policy. He has published extensively on comparative foreign policy and international issues involving Asia and the United States. He has also done extensive work on international trade, technology and investment policy. His special expertise is the international communications and information industries. He is a former chief of the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and negotiated many of the U.S. international agreements for telecommunications and satellite services. He had responsibility for antitrust decisions involving the communications and satellite industries. He is currently co-leader of the IGCC project on biological threats and public policy, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation.  And he has served on the boards of leading global non-profits using microfinance and technology innovation programs to alleviate world poverty.

Current Projects

Cowhey is a member of the board of directors of the Grameen Foundation USA, the US foundation supporting the work of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Cowhey is a research scholar at the California Institute on Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) and is a non-resident fellow of the Annenberg Center of Communications at USC. He also consults extensively for the telecommunications and information technology industries. His recent book is Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation, (with J. Aronson and D. Abelson), MIT Press (2009). He is currently working on a book manuscript on American Foreign Economic Policy with M. McCubbins.

In 2009, Peter Cowhey served a 12 month assignment as the Senior Counselor to Ambassador Kirk in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) under President Barack Obama.

Background Notes

Cowhey is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served as chairman of the board of Digital Partners, a non-profit organization using social entrepreneurship to address the "digital divide." In addition to having served on the advisory boards of the United Nations Development Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development, he has advised over fifty countries on reforming their communications markets. Cowhey joined UCSD's faculty in 1976. He was director of the University of California's system-wide IGCC from 1999-2006 and Associate Vice Chancellor-International Affairs from 2007-2009. Cowhey became Dean of IR/PS in July 2002.

Professional Activities

In addition to his work on communications and technology markets and policies, Cowhey remains active in the foreign policy community. He is a member of the advisory board for the American Assembly's Project on the Next Generation of Foreign Policy Leaders. He is co-director of the Carnegie Corporations's project on Biosecurity and Public Policy at IGCC, serves on the board of directors of the Institute of the Americas and the San Diego World Trade Center, and recently became a Council member of California Council on Science and Technology.