My Biography

I was born in Kentucky, the only daughter in a family with four kids. My mom is a musician and was a psychotherapist and my dad was a Protestant minister. We lived in upstate New York, Montana, Wisconsin and Oregon when I was growing up.

I was 19 years old and a student at Vassar College when I was diagnosed with an advanced case of Hodgkin's disease. I was very sick and had a lot of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. I was not a good patient. I was snippy to the doctors and wouldn't take my pills when I was supposed to and would go out dancing when my immune system was at low ebb. My casual misbehavior in the face of such a devastating diagnosis continues to amaze me - and probably influenced my professional interests. How could I have taken such risks when my life depended on doing - or not doing -- these few simple things?

I graduated from Vassar College and received a PhD in social psychology from Columbia University. Since then, I have worked in the private sector (AT&T), the public sector (the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health) and the voluntary sector (the American Cancer Society). In each position, I have been able to work on the questions raised by my first diagnosis: How do we understand the risks for disease and of treatment? How can behavioral and social science research help us respond to our illnesses and act to prevent disease in the first place?

Center For The Advancement of Health

In 1992, I was asked by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation to start a new Washington-based policy organization to draw attention to the scientific evidence showing the influence of non-medical factors on health and disease. At this organization, the Center for the Advancement of Health, we have a particular interest in how people use evidence when making decisions about their health and their health care.

Over the years, I received two additional cancer diagnoses and was hospitalized with a dangerous heart condition. These events have taught me that expertise and experience offer little protection against the painful shock of bad medical news.

I live with my husband, a professor and biomedical researcher at Columbia University, and two lively parrots in New York City. I am a musician, an avid reader of poetry and am fascinated by the interplay of foreign policy, the media and global health. I travel weekly to Washington D.C., where I work.