Award

Zarek Brot-Goldberg is the recipient of this year’s Richard M. Scheffler Prize in Health Economics. He is being recognized for his PhD thesis in health economics. During the 2019-2020 academic year, he will be a postdoctoral associate at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale. The following year, he will be an assistant professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the Scheffler Health Economics Award Fund, as this award will be a tribute to Dr. Scheffler for his many contributions to Berkeley and will enable the PhD program to highlight the research excellence in health economics and policy. If you are able to contribute to the dissertation award fund, please either mail a check to University of California, Berkeley Foundation and note “The Scheffler Health Economics Award Fund” or you can click here to be directed to the secure donation website.

A New York Times article published earlier this year, included a Petris Center analysis finding that increasing hospital prices for patients were due to the growing rate of hospital mergers. This article eventually was placed on a list of the most relevant health and medicine stories of the year from the New York Times.

Read the full New York Times article here.

The University of California, Berkeley, has launched an annual award to recognize the best PhD paper in health policy and economics. The award is named the “Richard M. Scheffler Prize in Health Economics”, in honor of Petris Center Director Richard Scheffler’s distinguished year. Each year, the award will include a prize ($1K), a framed certificate, and a celebratory lunch with select faculty and students.

Chaoran Guo (2018) is the first recipient of the Scheffler Health Economics Award and will start her academic career this fall as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the Scheffler Health Economics Award Fund, as this award will be a tribute to Dr. Scheffler for his many contributions to Berkeley and will enable the PhD program to highlight the research excellence in health economics and policy. If you are able to contribute to the dissertation award fund, please either mail a check to University of California, Berkeley Foundation and note “The Scheffler Health Economics Award Fund” or you can click here to be directed to the secure donation website.

 

On May 1st, Petris Center Director Dr. Richard M. Scheffler was awarded the Berkeley Citation, among the highest honors the campus bestows on its community. The award is presented on behalf of the Chancellor to individuals whose contributions to UC Berkeley go beyond the call of duty and whose achievements exceed the standards of excellence in their fields. The award was presented to Dr. Scheffler by School of Public Health Dean Emeritus Stephen M. Shortell during the Health Policy and Management Division faculty meeting. Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Paul Alivisatos also presented the award to Dr. Scheffler on May 3rd at the School of Public Health All-School Faculty meeting.

Dr. Scheffler joined the Berkeley faculty in 1981. He is a Distinguished Professor of Health Economics and Public Policy in the School of Public Health and Goldman School of Public Policy, and holds the Chair in Healthcare Markets and Consumer Welfare, endowed by the California Attorney General. The citation recognized his 36 years of service to the Berkeley campus that have gone far beyond the call of duty.

Professor Scheffler’s contributions include founding the Health Policy PhD program in 1988 and serving as the program’s director for a decade, founding the joint Masters of Public Health-Masters of Public Policy Program in 1986, and serving as President of the Berkeley Faculty Association. He was also recognized for his service as the founding director of the UC Berkeley/UCSF Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Scholars program from 1993-2005. The interdisciplinary, campus-wide program had 81 graduates over its lifespan, with a number of those graduates now on the Berkeley faculty. “If there is one word that sums up Richard’s contributions, it is ‘builder’. Many faculty and students alike have benefited from his leadership,” said Dean Emeritus Shortell.

Professor Scheffler will be retiring from teaching in June, but plans to remain an active member of the UC Berkeley community. He will devote his time to his research at the Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare, and was just elected to serve as a member of the Berkeley Academic Senate’s Divisional Council for the 2018-2019 academic year. As his colleague Professor Emeritus Teh-Wei Hu wrote, “With your energy, professional interest, and wisdom, I am sure you are not going to retire. In fact, I predict that you will actually be much busier. Just enjoy doing what you would love to do.”

Dr. Scheffler was awarded the Astor Visiting Lectureship by Oxford University to deliver two lectures and a seminar in June at Oxford, in conjunction with the Oxford Department of International Development and the International Migration Institute.

The full details can be viewed below or accessed here.

Petris Center Director Richard Scheffler was honored at the Berkeley Public Library Foundation’s 14th Annual Authors Dinner on February 6th, a celebration of the Bay Area’s literary community. Dr. Scheffler was honored alongside Dr. Stephen Hinshaw for their work on the book The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money, and Today’s Push for Performance which blends clinical wisdom, current science, medical and school policy, and global trends to debunk myths and set the record straight about ADHD.

From the Berkeley Public Library Foundation website:

Learn more about the Authors Dinner here and see the full list of the 2016 honored authors, including the bio of Dr. Scheffler and Dr. Hinshaw, here.

Petris Center Director Dr. Richard Scheffler was awarded the Gold Medal of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic for his “extraordinary contribution to the international science and post-doctoral education in the field of health policy and health economics from 1990 till present”. This award was presented by the Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University during our Fogarty International training conference May 30th, 2015. The full press release issued by Charles University can be found here.