Thaya Brook Knight was associate director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. She is an attorney with extensive experience in securities regulation, small business capital access, and capital markets. Before joining Cato, she co‐​founded and served as general counsel of CrowdCheck, a company providing due diligence and disclosure services in the online investing market. Following the recent financial crisis, she served as investigative counsel for the congressional oversight panel charged with overseeing the expenditure of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. She also spent several years with the Washington office of the law firm WilmerHale, where her practice focused on securities litigation, securities enforcement defense, and corporate investigations.

She holds a BA from Middlebury College and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School.