Dana Goldman to Head Schaeffer Center

By Anna Cearley on September 24, 2009 11:50 AM

Dana Goldman, a widely respected expert in health economics, has been named director of the new Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at USC, according to an announcement from USC Executive Vice President and Provost C. L. Max Nikias.

Goldman, who most recently served as director of the RAND Corp.’s Health Economics, Finance and Organization Division, will hold the Norman Topping Chair in Medicine and Public Policy at the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, and has a joint appointment at the USC School of Pharmacy.

He is joined by three other prominent health economists from the RAND Corp. Together, they will form the core of the newly established Schaeffer Center, which is named for health care industry leader Leonard D. Schaeffer. The center is a collaboration between the School of Policy, Planning, and Development and the School of Pharmacy, with the goal of raising awareness and producing groundbreaking research in the areas of health economics, health policy and pharmaceutical economics.

Two of the new faculty members - Geoffrey Joyce and Neeraj Sood - will be based in the School of Pharmacy; the third, Darius Lakdawalla, will be based in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, where the Schaeffer Center is housed. They will be joined by the current pharmacoeconomics group at the School of Pharmacy, including Jason Doctor, Joel Hay, Kathleen Johnson, Jeff McCombs and Mike Nichol, who has a joint appointment with the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, as well as Vivian Wu of the School of Policy, Planning, and Development.

Jack H. Knott, dean of the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, called the new hires an outstanding addition to USC’s faculty.

“These faculty hires will substantially increase the research capacity, scholarly reputation, and teaching in health policy and economics at USC,” Knott said. “This group will build on SPPD’s existing capacity in health policy and economics and the School of Pharmacy’s strength in pharmaceutical economics. Taken together, they have the potential to be the strongest health economics and policy group in the country.”

The four-member team holds an impressive track record in attracting funding for research projects.

“These outstanding new hires will help create a dynamic culture of research collaboration and information exchange that will impact positively the future direction of health care,” said Dean R. Pete Vanderveen of the USC School of Pharmacy.

“Their addition allows us to meld the School of Pharmacy’s nationally known pharmaceutical economics group with the health policy acumen of the new faculty from the RAND Corp., as well as faculty from the School of Policy, Planning, and Development.”

At RAND, Goldman held a chair in health economics and served as director of several other centers and activities, including the Bing Center for Health Economics, the Roybal Center for Health Policy Simulation and the RAND Summer Institute.

In the past 10 years, he has published 70 peer-reviewed articles and received more than $10 million in externally funded research grants. He is on the editorial board of Health Affairs, is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves on numerous advisory panels with the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging and the Institute of Medicine.

A widely quoted expert in health economics, Goldman holds a B.A. in economics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Lakdawalla, who was director of research for the Bing Center on Health Economics at RAND, has published 25 peer-reviewed articles over eight years and received the 2003 Milken Institute Award for Distinguished Research.

Among his most recent research interests are the declining use of nursing homes by the elderly, rising rates of obesity in America and the growth in disability among younger Americans. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has a B.A. in mathematics and philosophy from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Joyce, who was a senior economist at RAND, has taught economics at Cornell and UCLA, where he was also an adjunct associate professor at the School of Public Health.

He has published more 50 peer-reviewed articles over the past 10 years, and his work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and on NBC Nightly News. His recent projects include work on the impact of Medicare Part D, drug benefit design, smoking cessation and cost of disease. He holds a B.A. from Connecticut College, an MPP from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in economics from the City University of New York.

Neeraj Sood, also a senior economist at RAND, is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau for Economic Research and is on the editorial board of Forum for Health Economics and Policy.

He has published several papers in top tier journals in economics, medicine and health policy. His work has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Report, and he has appeared on C-SPAN.

His recent work spans several areas, including the impact of rising health care costs on the U.S. economy and the role of public policy in encouraging innovation. He holds an M.A. in economics from Indiana University, an M.A. in economics from the Delhi School of Economics and a Ph.D. in policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School.

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