He has served on various governmental advisory panels, including Tennessee’s Environmental Justice Steering Committee and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board Panel on Illegal Competitive Advantage and Economic Benefits. He is a member of the Stakeholder Council of the Global Reporting Initiative, and serves on several academic editorial boards including Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Environmental Economics, and Managerial and Decision Economics.
 
Cohen also is a professor of management at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and holds a secondary appointment at Vanderbilt as a professor of law. Previously, he was a staff economist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
 
At Vanderbilt, he has taught such courses as Economics of Organizations, Corporate Strategies for Environmental and Social Responsibility, and the Law and Business of Climate Change. He co-founded and directed the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies, and from 2003-2005 he was senior associate dean of the Owen Graduate School.