When Stephanie Psaki, a senior fellow in public health, joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2021, she was tasked with helping coordinate the government’s response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
She then joined the National Security Council at the White House in the Biden-Harris administration where she worked for two and a half years. A scientist and an academic by training, she told The Herald she didn’t expect to move to this policy-focused role.
“I didn’t think that I was going to do this job when I was in undergrad or in grad school,” she said. “It never occurred to me.”
But now, Psaki has returned to academia, bringing her policy experience to Brown.
“If you want to do research that influences decision making by policy makers, it’s very helpful to sit in the seat of a policy maker and understand what factors facilitate or inhibit decision making,” Psaki said.
Psaki is not the only School of Public Health academic who has spent time in the federal government. Brown academics who spoke to The Herald said these positions have informed their work at the University, helping them translate research into policy solutions.
Scott Rivkees, a professor of practice at the SPH and an associate dean of education, is Florida’s former surgeon general and secretary of health. But he told The Herald that this was not something that he always wanted to pursue.
But when the opportunity arose, he felt compelled to take it because of the “chance to influence health care and the health of (millions of people) at a time, rather than one at a time.”
Entering the role in 2019, Rivkees served as surgeon general for much of the pandemic. Prior to that, he was at Yale for 16 years until he left Connecticut to chair the pediatrics department at the University of Florida.
Rivkees said that the pandemic pushed out many in government public health roles. “After the pandemic, about 50% of (individuals involved with public health at the state or federal level) turned over,” Rivkees said. For those under 35, the turnover rate was 70%.
He attributed this churn to stress from working in government during the pandemic as well as low salaries for many government-based public health positions.
“The individuals that I worked with in the Florida Department of Health, in terms of what their salaries were, would be about half, if not even less than that, of what one would see in the private sector,” Rivkees said. “You’re going to have more turnover because of some of the lifestyle and affordability issues.”
The Herald also spoke to Georgia Lagoudas, a senior fellow at the School of Public Health’s Pandemic Center. During the Biden Administration, she spent two years in the White House as a senior advisor working on biotechnology and bioeconomy policy.
Lagoudas originally left research for the government because she was excited by the idea of making “change in people’s lives” on a larger scale, she said.
Psaki and Rivkees both said government positions often depend on the current administration at the state and federal levels.
Following opposition to some COVID-19 preventative measures in Florida, Rivkees left. But he knew that he wanted to stay in the public health field and decided on coming to Brown after having a conversation with Asisha Jha, the dean of the SPH.
Psaki ended up returning to academia following the 2024 election.
“I knew I was going to no longer have a job,” she said. “I love academia, and I think this is a great opportunity to just spend some time thinking a little bit more deeply about some solutions to some of the problems that we faced over the last four years.”
Elizabeth Rosenbaum contributed reporting.
Leah Koritz is a senior staff writer covering science & research. Leah is from Dover, Massachusetts and studies Public Health and Judaic Studies. In her free time, Leah enjoys hiking, watching the Red Sox and playing with her dog, Boba.
