Judy Feder

Judy Feder is a professor of public policy and, from 1999 to 2008, served as dean of what is now the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. A nationally-recognized leader in health policy, Feder has made her mark on the nation’s health insurance system, through both scholarship and public service. A widely published scholar, Feder’s health policy research began at the Brookings Institution, continued at the Urban Institute, and, since 1984, has flourished at Georgetown University.

In the late 1980s, Feder moved from policy research to policy leadership, actively promoting effective health reform as staff director of the congressional Pepper Commission (chaired by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV) in 1989–90; principal deputy assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services in former President Bill Clinton’s first term; a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (2008–11) and, today, as an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute. Feder matches her own contributions to policy with her contributions to nurturing emerging policy leaders. As dean from 1999 to 2008, she built Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute into one of the nation’s leading public policy schools, whose graduates participate in policymaking, policy research, and policy politics, throughout Washington, the nation, and the world.

Feder is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Public Administration, and the National Academy of Social Insurance; a former chair and board member of Academy Health and former board member of the National Academy of Social Insurance; and a member of the Center for American Progress Action Fund Board and of The Hamilton Project’s Advisory Council. In 2006 and 2008, Feder was the Democratic nominee for Congress in Virginia’s 10th congressional district. Feder is a political scientist, with a B.A. from Brandeis University, and a master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University.