Peter Cowhey holds the Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Communications and Technology Policy and is Dean of the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He chairs the Working Group on Science and Technology in U.S.-China relations. He is an expert on the future of communications and information technology markets and policy, specializing in U.S. trade policy, foreign policy, the Internet, and international corporate strategy.
His two most recent books, co-authored with Jonathan D. Aronson, are Digital DNA: Disruption and the Challenges for Global Governance (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation (MIT Press, 2009).
Cowhey has extensive experience in government. In the Clinton Administration, he served as the 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. In 2009, he served a 12-month assignment as the senior counselor to Ambassador Ron Kirk in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, playing a key role in the strategic agenda for trade policy. Subsequently, Cowhey served on a bi-national experts group appointed by the U.S. and Chinese governments to research and advise on innovation policy.
As chair of the CONNECT Innovation Institute, he is co-leading a project on U.S. innovation policies.
Cowhey has served in many leadership positions in the nonprofit world. He served as the chief Policy Officer for the Aspen Institute’s International Digital Economy Accords project to update policies involving the Internet and global communications markets. Cowhey is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors for both the California Council on Science and Technology and the Grameen Foundation USA, the U.S. foundation supporting the work of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus.
Cowhey is a member of the Global Competitiveness Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. He joined the UC San Diego faculty in 1976. He was Director of the University of California’s system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation from 1999-2006 and Associate Vice Chancellor-International Affairs from 2007-2009. He was the Interim Executive Vice Chancellor of UC San Diego in 2016-2017. Cowhey became Dean of the School in July 2002.
