Rob Cohen (born March 12, 1949) is an American film director, writer and producer. He is best known for directing the first Fast and the Furious installment (2001), as well as the action films xXx (2002) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer (2008). He's a graduate in Anthropology and Visual Studies from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and while working as a reader for Universal in the early-1970s discovered the screenplay for what would become The Sting (1973).