Benjamin Sommers, M.D., Ph.D., is the Huntley Quech Professor of Health Care Economics at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a health economist and primary care physician whose main research interests are health policy for marginalized populations and the health care safety net. He has received numerous awards including the Health Services Research Impact Award and the Article-of-the-Year Award from AcademyHealth, and the Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019 and has testified before Congress and advised state Medicaid programs. In January 2021, he was appointed by President Biden as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and from 2022-2023, he was appointed to lead ASPE as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary. His research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Health Economics, and Health Affairs, and covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
Dr. Sommers was a committee Member for the 2018 Annual Research Meeting.