Suzan Denise Johnson Cook (born January 28, 1957) is a U.S. presidential advisor, pastor, theologian, author, activist, and academic who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom from April 2011 to October 2013.

[2] She has served as a policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and later to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, a dean and professor of communications at Harvard University, a professor of theology at New York Theological Seminary, a pastor at a number of churches, a television producer, and the author of nearly a dozen books.

Her father was one of the first black trolley drivers in New York City before opening a security agency and her mother was a public school teacher in Harlem.

[6] After college, Johnson began a career in television, serving as a producer for several news affiliates in Boston, Washington, and Miami before deciding to enter ministry.

She spent time on the faculty at Harvard University, serving as a dean and a professor teaching in the areas of speech and communications.

[12][13] On July 13, 2013, she was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta sorority as an honorary member, during their Centennial Celebration in Washington, D.C.[citation needed] In 1993 Johnson Cook was selected to become a White House Fellow.

[citation needed] In 2016 she ran in the Democratic primary election for New York's 13th congressional district to replace retiring congressman Charles Rangel.

[19] She resigned in October 2013 in order to earn more money in the private sector so she can give her sons the gift of a "debt-free college education.