Yaron Brook, Ph.D.
Dr. Brook is a prominent advocate for Objectivism, the philosophy originated by novelist Ayn Rand. As president of the Ayn Rand Institute, an educational organization based in California, he appears frequently on national TV and radio to discuss current events and issues from the Objectivist viewpoint. He is a regular guest on CNBC and has made frequent appearances on Fox News, including on the O’Reilly Factor. As an expert on foreign policy and the Middle East, he is interviewed for his answers to a range of questions related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the war in Iraq, the Iranian threat and Totalitarian Islam and terrorism.
A popular speaker at corporations, universities and community groups, Dr. Brook is known for his radical ideas and passionate style. His lectures on the Middle east, on the morality of war and on America’s response to September 11th have been delivered on dozens of campuses around the country, including New York University, Stanford, Harvard, University of Chicago and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He also took part in several recent panel discussions at American universities where the controversial Danish cartoons of Mohammed were unveiled in defense of the right to free speech.
As a writer, Dr. Brook has published articles in many newspapers and professional journals. His most recent article “‘Just War Theory’ vs. American Self-Defense” (co-authored with Alex Epstein) was published in the premier edition of The Objective Standard, a new journal devoted to cultural and political issues. An online version of the article can be read for free at the journal’s Web site.
Before joining the Ayn Rand Institute, Dr. Brook lived in Israel, where he served in the Israeli military intelligence and earned a B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering. In 1987 he moved to the United States, where he later received his MBA and Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin. For seven years he was a finance professor at Santa Clara University, where he won several teaching awards, and in 1998 he co-founded a financial advisory firm, BH Equity Research, for which he is presently managing director and chairman.