Judith Feder, Ph.D.
Dean of Public Policy, Georgetown University, USA

Judy Feder is Professor and Dean of Policy Studies at Georgetown University. Under her leadership, Georgetown's Public Policy Institute (GPPI) draws on the University's academic excellence and the extraordinary resources of the nation's capital to train highly skilled and committed policy professionals (about 75 graduates each year) for leadership positions in private firms; federal, state and local government (including the District of Columbia); and nonprofit organizations. Feder is also a senior scholar at Georgetown's Institute of Health care Research and Policy--where she continues the health policy research that has made her a national expert.

Feder is one of the nation's leaders in health policy--most particularly, in efforts to understand and improve the nation's health insurance system. A widely published scholar, for three decades of policy research began at the Brookings Institution, continued at the Urban Institute, and, since 1984, has flourished at Georgetown University. Her expertise on the uninsured, Medicare and Medicaid, and long-term care is regularly drawn upon by members of Congress, Executive officials, and the national media.

Feder has also held leadership policy positions, both in the Congress and in the Executive Branch. As staff director of the congressional Pepper Commission (chaired by Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV), Feder a widely credited with setting the stage for the health reform debate of the 1990's. She became a key actor in that debate, as a senior official in the Clinton Administration. In her three years as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at Health and Human Services, Feder helped shape the Administration's health care policy, working intensively with members of Congress and with the national media to promote the expansion of health care coverage.

Feder today pursues her policy leadership as senior advisor to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, at Kaiser's Incremental Health Reform Project, member of the boards of the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy and Families USA and the editorial boards of health policy journals, and a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Feder is a political scientist, with a B.A. from Brandeis University (1968) and a Master's (1970) and Ph.D. (1977) from Harvard University.