Executive Director of the LDI: Daniel Polsky	Print Issue
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Provost Vincent Price is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Daniel Polsky as executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI), effective October 15, 2012. Dr. Polsky, G’96, is professor of medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment as professor of health care management in the Wharton School. He has taught at Penn since 1996, when he earned his PhD here in economics, and has been director of research at the LDI since 2008. He serves on the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisers and, from 2007-2008, was senior economist on health issues for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

A globally recognized expert in health economics, Dr. Polsky is a co-author of Economic Evaluation in Clinical Trials (Oxford University Press, 2007) and an author of more than 90 peer-reviewed articles, in such leading journals as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and Journal of Health Economics. His research has received extensive federal funding, including multiple awards from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition to his PhD in economics from Penn, he earned an MPP (1989) and a BA in economics (1988) from the University of Michigan.

“The relationships between health care and economics—which the LDI has been investigating for 45 years—are more central than ever on the global agenda,” said Provost Price. “Dan Polsky’s interdisciplinary research and collaborative approach make him the ideal director to continue this invaluable work, building on the great strides made under the dynamic leadership of David Asch. I am grateful to the members of the consultative committee—Deans Larry Jameson, Afaf Meleis, and Thomas Robertson and Senior Vice Provost for Research Steven Fluharty—for their careful and insightful advice leading to this outstanding appointment.”

Dr. Polsky succeeds Dr. David Asch, executive director of the LDI since 1998, who has been appointed the inaugural executive director of the Penn Medicine Center for Innovation.

The LDI, established in 1967 with a gift from Leonard and Sophie Davis (Almanac December 1967), serves as the University’s primary locus for research, policy analysis and education in health systems. More than 200 LDI Senior Fellows work to improve the health of the public through studies on the medical, economic and social issues that influence how health care is organized, financed, managed and delivered, guiding health policies at all levels of government and the private sector.