Secretariat

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.

April Harding is an economist and health systems specialist who joined CGD from the Human Development department in the Latin America and Caribbean region of the World Bank. For the past 8 years she's been leading the Bank's work related to public policy toward the private health sector, as well as on hospital reform and governance of health services in developing and transition countries. Before she shifted her focus to health systems, April worked for 7 years on private sector development and privatization in transition economies. This work included advice and technical assistance to governments in more than 13 countries, including advising the Polish and Russian governments on privatization in the early 1990s. Prior to her work at the World Bank, April was a Research Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. During her time as a Visiting Fellow at CGD, April will be writing a book on how policy toward the private health sector can be improved to enhance the private sector contribution to public policy goals.

Danielle Kuczynski joined the Center in September 2007 as a GHPRN Program Coordinator. Prior to joining the Center, Danielle worked in Tanzania with the University of Toronto's HIV/AIDS Initiative- Africa as a Knowledge Network Officer. In addition to other overseas experience, her work in the public sector includes a 2006 Policy Analyst post with the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion. In 2005, Danielle completed an MSc in International Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she wrote her dissertation in South Africa examining perceived barriers to antiretroviral adherence. Additionally, she holds a BSc in Honors Psychology from the University of Western Ontario

Jessica Pickett is a policy analyst at CGD, where she manages the new Drug Resistance Working Group and coordinates research and outreach around advance market commitments, demand forecasting, and other efforts to promote the development and delivery of essential medical technologies for low- and middle-income countries. Jessica has coauthored A Risky Business: Saving Money and Improving Global Health through Better Demand Forecasts and Measuring Commitment to Health: Global Health Indicators Working Group Report, and oversaw the creation of the Global Health Policy blog. Prior to joining the Center in May 2005, Jessica supported fundraising and communications activities at the GAVI Fund. She holds a degree in public policy with a concentration in health from Duke University.