Ruth Levine is an internationally recognized expert on global health and health policy. She is a health economist with more than 15 years of experience designing and assessing the effects of social sector programs in Latin America, Eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. As CGD vice president for programs and operations, she is a member of the Center’s senior management team. She is also a CGD senior fellow and leads the Center’s work on global health policy, including chairing a series of working groups on key policy and finance constraints to the effective use of donor funding for health programs in low-income countries. Before joining the CGD, Ruth designed, supervised, and evaluated loans at the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Between 1997 and 1999, she served as the advisor on the social sectors in the office of the executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank. Ruth has a doctoral degree in economic demography from Johns Hopkins University, and is the co-author of the books The Health of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (World Bank, 2001) and Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health (CGD, 2004, updated as Cases in Global Health: Millions Saved (Jones and Bartlett, 2007)), as well as the major reports Making Markets for Vaccines: Ideas to Action (CGD, 2005), When Will We Ever Learn: Improving Lives through Impact Evaluation (CGD, 2006) and A Risky Business: Saving Money and Improving Global Health through Better Demand Forecasting (CGD, 2007).
Rachel Nugent is a senior associate in CGD’s Global Health Programs. She provides economic and policy expertise to support HPRN Working Groups, manages CGD programs on Population and Economic Development, and conducts research on other global health topics. She has 25 years of experience as a development economist, managing and carrying out research and policy analysis in the fields of health, agriculture and the environment. Prior to joining CGD, Rachel worked at the Population Reference Bureau, the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. She also served as associate professor and chair of the economics department at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. Rachel’s publications include a range of topics, from the cost-effectiveness of non-communicable disease interventions and health impacts of fiscal policies to impacts of microcredit on the environment in developing countries and economic impacts of transboundary diseases and pests. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from George Washington University.
Mead Over is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, where he focuses on the economics of the AIDS epidemic; other research topics include the optimal pricing of health care services at the periphery, on the measurement and explanation of the efficiency of health service delivery in poor countries and on optimal interventions to control a global influenza pandemic. Mead first entered international development as a US Peace Corps officer in Burkina Faso before earning a PhD in Economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His teaching experience includes work as a Foreign Scholar in the Economics Department of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and the Center for Development at Williams College from 1975 through 1981 and as an Associate Professor of Economics at Boston University from 1981 through 1985, where he also held the position of Associate Professor of Public Health. Mead subsequently joined the World Bank as a Health Economist in 1986, where he advanced to the position of Lead Health Economist in the Development Research Group before transitioning to CGD in 2006.
Thomas Bollyky is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development where he investigates the legal and ethical issues that arise during the discovery, development, and delivery of essential medical technologies to the developing world. Previously, Tom served as Director of Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Policy at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), where he led the negotiations for pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical technologies in the U.S.-Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement and represented USTR in the negotiations with China on safety of drug and medical device imports. He was also a Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, where he worked as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project on treatment access issues related to HIV/AIDS, and a senior attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he represented Mexico before the International Court of Justice in Avena and other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America) and José Ernesto Medellín before the United States Supreme Court in Medellin v. Dretke. He is a former law clerk to Chief Judge Edward R. Korman, E.D.N.Y., an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an Eesti and Eurasian Public Service Fellow at the Estonian Ministry of Education, and a health policy analyst, through the Outstanding Scholar Program, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Bollyky received his B.A. in Biology and History at Columbia University and his J.D. at Stanford Law School, where he was the President of the Stanford Law & Policy Review. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the New York and U.S. Supreme Court bars and the American Society of International Law.
Katie Stein joined the Center for Global Development in November 2009 and is a program coordinator with the global health policy team. Before joining the Center, Katie led operations for a social venture group that identifies, invests and operates businesses in Rwanda. Prior to that, Katie worked for the Earth Institute in the Center for Global Health and Economic Development and spent two years in Rwanda where she managed the Millennium Villages and Access projects. Katie graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Urban Studies.
Casey Otto joined the Center for Global Development's executive staff in November, 2008. Originally from Evanston, IL, he is a recent graduate of Wesleyan University where he received a B.A. in East Asian Studies. Casey took time off from school to work for Sen. Barack Obama’s Senatorial campaign and Sen. John Kerry’s Presidential campaign, and also served as Office Manager for the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization.