Karen Cook

Karen Schweers Cook (born July 25, 1946, in Austin, Texas) is an American sociologist and the Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. There she collaborated with Richard Marc Emerson and developed the first computer-based laboratory for the study of social exchange.

From 1995 to 1998 Cook was the James B. Duke Professor of Sociology and director of the Laboratory for Social Research at Duke University. She also served as senior associate dean for the social sciences from 2001 to 2005, and as chair of the sociology department from 2005 to 2010. the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007), and the National Academy of Sciences (2007). She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.

Cook is a past president of the Pacific Sociological Association (1990–1991) and a former vice president of the International Institute of Sociology (1992–1993) and the American Sociological Association (1994–1995).

She has edited or co-edited a number of books in the Russell Sage Foundation Trust Series including Trust in Society (2001), Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Emerging Perspectives (2004), eTrust: Forming Relations in the Online World (2009), and Whom Can Your Trust? (2009). She is a co-author of Cooperation without Trust? (2005). Cook is a co-editor of the Annual Review of Sociology. She is also a co-chair of the Annual Reviews Board of Directors.

Cook received the Cooley-Mead Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the American Sociological Association in 2004.