Throughout the Program’s lifespan, the National Advisory Committee (NAC) played multiple advisory roles: it counseled RWJF and the NPO on Program policy matters, helped to monitor progress at the sites, and provided valuable research guidance to Scholars at the annual meetings.  Its most indispensable role, though, was to engage in extraordinarily lively and collegial discussion during the Scholar selection process in which it aided the sites and the NPO to determine which candidates were the strongest and best suited for the Program.

Prior to the NAC’s formation in 1993, a five-member Steering Committee composed of prominent social scientists involved in health policy research was appointed to aid RWJF staff in designing the program.  The five-member committee included Stuart Altman of Brandeis University (economics), Judith Feder of Georgetown University (political science), Rashi Fein of Harvard Medical School (economics), Howard Freeman of UCLA (sociology), and James Morone of Brown University (political science).  Several of these individuals later became members of the NAC.

The NAC was led by three eminent scholars over time: Donald Kennedy, former president, Stanford University (1993 – 1994); Rashi Fein, Professor of the Economics of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School (1994 – 2002); and Mark Peterson, Professor of Public Policy, Political Science, and Law, University of California, Los Angeles (2002 – 2016).  Between 1992 and 2016, forty-six distinguished scholars served on either the NAC or its predecessor, the Steering Committee.

*After stepping down as NAC chair in 2002 when Harvard University joined the Program as a training site, Rashi Fein was appointed chair emeritus.  Professor Fein was a much beloved figure who gave generously of his time and counsel and who regaled Scholars with pithy stories and insightful lessons regarding health policy, economics, and medicine.  He died in 2014 and was memorialized at the Program’s 2015 annual meeting in the following video:

In Memoriam - Rashi Fein