Distinguished Global Health Scholar Pioneering Political Analysis of Health Systems Reform
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Harvard UniversityMichael R. Reich has transformed understanding of health policy and systems through his groundbreaking work combining political science with public health. After earning three degrees from Yale University - BA in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (1974), MA in East Asian Studies (1975), and PhD in Political Science (1981) - he joined Harvard's School of Public Health in 1983, where he established the influential Takemi Program in International Health. As Taro Takemi Professor of International Health Policy, he pioneered the analysis of political dimensions in health reform, co-authoring the seminal text "Getting Health Reform Right" (2004) and founding the journal Health Systems & Reform. His four-decade engagement with Japanese health policy earned him the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government in 2015, while his work spans from early studies of Japan's environmental crisis to recent innovations in pharmaceutical policy and access to medicines. Through directing the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (2001-2005) and receiving the Lifetime Service Award in Health Policy and Systems Research (2016), he has shaped global understanding of how political factors influence health system performance while mentoring hundreds of scholars through the Takemi Program, which has hosted over 290 fellows from 56 countries