Harvard Catalyst Profiles

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Benjamin Daniel Sommers, M.D., Ph.D.

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Biography
2006
National Dissertation Award
2007
Daniel E. Ford Award in Health Services Research
2007
Robert Ebert Award in Primary Care Medicine
2010
Resident Mentor Award
2010
Best Residents and Fellows at Harvard Medical School
2011
Faculty Mentor Award
2011
Best Oral Presentation in Scientific Abstracts
2012
Hamolsky Award
2013
Teaching Citation
2015
Alice Hersh New Investigator Award
2015
Article of the Year Award
2015
Outstanding Junior Investigator
2017
Impact Award for Health Services Research
2019
Member

Overview
Dr. Sommers is a health economist and a physician whose main research interests are health policy for vulnerable populations, the uninsured, and the health care safety net. He is the Huntley Quelch Professor of Health Care Economics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Outstanding Dissertation Award, Alice Hersh New Investigator Award, the 2015 Article-of-the-Year Award, and the 2017 Health Services Research Impact Award from AcademyHealth, a preeminent national association of health policy researchers; and the Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019. His research has been published in leading journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Journal of Health Economics, and Health Affairs. His research has been profiled in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Public Radio. He has testified before Congress and advised state Medicaid programs.

Dr. Sommers has served in the federal government in multiple leadership roles. In January 2021, he was appointed by President Biden as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and he served in that role until early 2023. From 2022-2023, he was appointed to lead ASPE as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary. Previously, he served as a Senior Advisor in ASPE from 2011-2016, and continues in 2023 to serve in a part-time capacity as a Senior Counselor to the Assistant Secretary.

He received a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard and an MD from Harvard Medical School.

Research
The research activities and funding listed below are automatically derived from NIH ExPORTER and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing items. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.
  1. R01MD014970 (LAYTON, TIMOTHY) Jan 7, 2020 - Nov 30, 2024
    NIH
    Work Requirements and Health Care Disparities in Medicaid: A RandomizedControlled Trial
    Role: Principal Investigator
  2. 20171081 (SOMMERS, BENJAMIN D) Oct 1, 2017 - Sep 30, 2018
    Commonwealth Fund
    Examining Alternative Models of Medicaid Expansion: Assessing the Healthy Indiana Program
  3. 74560 (SOMMERS, BENJAMIN D) Sep 1, 2017 - Dec 31, 2018
    Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
    Using the Gallup Well-Being Index as an Early Monitoring System for Coverage and Access to Care After Changes to the Affordable Care Act
  4. K02HS021291 (SOMMERS, BENJAMIN D) Sep 1, 2012 - Aug 31, 2018
    NIH
    Medicaid Policy, Coverage, and Access to Care Among Low-Income Americans Under He
    Role: Principal Investigator
  5. R03HS019754 (SOMMERS, BENJAMIN D) Sep 15, 2010 - Sep 14, 2011
    NIH
    Policy and Demographic Predictors of Medicaid Take-Up Among Non-Elderly Adults
    Role: Principal Investigator

Bibliographic
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Funded by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, grant number UL1TR002541.