Eli Lehrer is the President of R Street Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public-policy research organization whose mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government.  Eli co-founded R Street in 2012, after previously serving as vice president for Washington operations at the Heartland Institute. Earlier in his career, he worked as a speechwriter to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.); as a project manager for the Unisys Corp.; as senior editor of The American Enterprise magazine; and as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Eli started his career as a reporter for The Washington Times.

He is a widely published writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today and The New York Times, among other publications. Eli serves as a contributing editor of National Affairs and prior to its closing in 2018, wrote regularly for The Weekly Standard.

Eli graduated cum laude from Cornell University with a bachelor’s in medieval studies. He received his master’s in government with honors from The Johns Hopkins University.