Staff

Alan Weil

Director

Alan Weil, JD, MPP, has held the position of editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, the nation’s leading health policy journal, since 2014.  Previously he was the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), director of the Urban Institute’s Assessing the New Federalism project, and executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been a member of the Medicaid & CHIP Payment & Access Commission (MACPAC), a trustee of the Consumer Health Foundation (now if, a foundation for radical possibility), a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid & the Uninsured, a member of the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, and a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Health Care Services.

Alexandra Reichert

Deputy Director

Alexandra (Allie) Reichert is a PhD student at Vanderbilt University studying global health and anthropology. Prior to starting her PhD, she worked on health policy at Health Affairs as a program coordinator and on global health policy at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security as a research assistant. Previously, Reichert received a Fulbright research scholarship to Ecuador. Her primary research interests center on global health policy, women’s health, Latin America, and health equity. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in philosophy and a minor in the anthropology of global health.

Ruth Katz

Executive Director, Health, Medicine, & Society Program

Ruth Katz, JD, MPH, is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine & Society Program, which brings together groups of thought leaders, decision-makers, and the informed public to confront US health challenges and pursue solutions to them. She also serves as vice president of the Aspen Institute and directs Aspen Ideas Health. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Katz served as chief public health counsel (Democratic staff) with the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the US House of Representatives. She has also been Walter G. Ross Professor of Health Policy of the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, dean of that school, and associate dean for administration at Yale University School of Medicine. A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she holds a law degree from Emory University and a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University.

Katya Wanzer

Manager of Operations, Health, Medicine, & Society Program

Katya Wanzer, MPH, is manager of operations for the Health, Medicine & Society Program at the Aspen Institute. Her extensive background in public health includes pursuing AIDS research in San Francisco at the height of the epidemic, conducting environmental and occupational health monitoring immediately after the 9/11 attacks in New York City, advocating for adoption of health information technology, and promoting emergency response services for the Virginia Department of Health. Wanzer earned an MPH from Hunter College in New York City.

Raven Tucker

Project Coordinator, Health, Medicine, & Society Program

Raven Tucker is project coordinator for the Health, Medicine, and Society Program. A native of South Carolina, she graduated from Wofford College with a BS in Biology and supports the HMS team by providing programmatic and administrative support.