Rachel Lipson is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, a Resident Scholar at the Aspen Institute Economic Strategy Group, and a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings Metro. Her current research focuses on a new generation of technical jobs, many fueled by AI and other emerging technologies, that do not require a four-year degree. She studies the labor market experience of U.S. “frontier regions” producing critical technologies such as data centers, chips, quantum, and advanced energy. From 2023 to 2025, Rachel served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Program Office, where she helped launch the workforce strategy for the $50 billion federal investment to revitalize domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Prior to joining the federal government, she served as the founding director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard. Rachel is the co-editor of America’s Hidden Economic Engines (Harvard Education Press 2023). Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, Washington Post, Newsweek, and The Hill, and her research has been featured by NPR, Bloomberg, and The Economist. She has held economic policy roles across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including at the World Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and Year Up. Rachel graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and holds an MBA and MPP from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. She is a recipient of the Frederick Fischer Prize and the Harvard Certificate of Distinction and Excellence in Teaching.