Benedicte Callan, principal administrator of health for the Biotechnology Division of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), will join the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs research team as a Sid Richardson Fellow focusing on health policy and innovation and will be a research affiliate of the Center for Health and Social Policy (CHASP) for the 2009-10 academic year.
“Benedicte Callan brings to CHASP a very unique perspective and extensive knowledge of innovation in health efforts in the OECD countries and will also conduct work on economic and environmental sustainability of bio-based products/processes,” said Interim Dean of the LBJ School Admiral Bobby R. Inman, U.S. Navy (Ret.) “Our expanding cluster of health policy researchers is rapidly increasing the school’s prominence in this field. We look forward to welcoming Benedicte into our community.”
Previously, Callan worked for 12 years at the OECD where she served as principal administrator of health for the Biotechnology Division and, most recently, head of the Biotechnology Unit. At the OECD, Callan had experience in building international consensus on good policy practice in a broad range of science, innovation and economic policy issues related to biotechnology’s applications to industry, health and the environment. Her most recent publications focus on addressing health and innovation policy in OECD countries and meeting global health goals. Over 2009-10, she will work on a project about policies that support knowledge networks and markets for biomedical data.
Callan has worked extensively on technology trade, intellectual property rights policy and innovation policy. Prior to the OECD, Callan was a Fellow for Political Economy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Callan received her Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley in political science in 1995 and her bachelor’s degree from Yale University in biology and East Asian studies.
The Center for Health and Social Policy (CHASP) at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, addresses health and social policy concerns by conducting policy research, educating students and practitioners to become future leaders, and providing a forum for debate and dialogue among today’s foremost policymakers and scholars about critical health and social policy issues.