In 2000, on the occasion of his 50th reunion from Harvard Law School, Marshall J. Seidman provided an endowment to the Department of Health Care Policy to support research related to health care costs and quality and to develop a university-wide endowed lecture series. Mr. Seidman was particularly interested in activities related to improving health policy at the federal and state levels.

Research activities at HCP have been largely centered around the Marshall J. Seidman Fellowship Program. This program identifies promising recent PhD graduates and invites them to join HCP. The selection of fellows is competitive, with candidates often coming from universities outside Harvard and then joining HCP to work with faculty members. Through this work, they are able to advance their research skills and increase their employment capital. Currently, senior faculty members Mary Beth Landrum and David C. Grabowski oversee the program.

The first Seidman fellows entered HCP in 2015, and have recently joined faculties at New York University, RAND, and the University of Pittsburgh. The second cohort of Seidman fellows started at HCP in the summer of 2017.  Each year, the department makes awards to several individuals.

Past fellows have worked in many areas, including the effects of market share on prices, the impact of Medicaid on usage, the impact of Maryland’s global budgeting program, and the effects of the 340b drug-discount program.

The first Seidman fellows joined HCP in summer 2015. 2017 fellow Wenjia Zhu of the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago was mentored by Nicole Maestas and  Andrew Wilcock, from the University of Minnesota, was mentored by J. Michael McWilliams and Ateev Mehrotra.

Recent Seidman fellows in the department are Lindsey Patterson, of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, who is mentored by Zirui Song, Boris Vabson, also of the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, mentored by Timothy Layton, and Kwangho Kim, of Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon, mentored by José Zubizarreta. 

Lecture Series:

The Marshall J. Seidman lecture series has been held annually since 2001 with a health care policy expert from outside Harvard University providing insight on a current topic relevant to health care costs, quality, or improvements.

Past  Lectures

Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, Chief Health Officer, Google
2023
Building the Future of Health: What Leaders Need to Know about Generative AI

Marcella Nunez-Smith, C.N.H Long Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine
2022

Susan Athey, PhD, The Ethics of Technology Professor, Stanford University
2021
Accelerating Health Technology: Lessons for the Next Pandemic

Mitchell Katz, MD, President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals
2020
Public Hospitals in the United States Origins and Challenges in the Age of COVID

Scott Gottlieb, MD, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute 
2019
Tobacco and Vaping Issues

Kathleen Sebelius, MPA, CEO, Sebelius Resources
2018
Health Care Following the 2018 Election

Joseph R. Antos and Len M. Nichols
2017
Debating the Political and Policy Landscape of Health Reform

Peter V. Lee
2016
Covered California: Improving the Affordability and Access of Health Care

Douglas Elmendorf 
2015
Next Steps for Federal Health Care Policy

Leemore Dafny
2014
Healthcare Provider Consolidation: Facts, Myths, and Unknowns

Joshua M. Sharfstein
2013
Lashed to the Mast: Navigating through Health Care Policy, Politics, and Reform in 2014 and Beyond

Senator Tom Daschle
2012
The Affordable Care Act: A New Paradigm for Health Care in America; A Review of the Challenges that Lie Ahead and What It Will Take to Succeed

Alan Weil
2011
Can American Federalism Survive Health Reform?

Mark Vincent Pauly
2010
Caution: Do Not Try This at Home without Adult Supervision--Cost Sharing in Insurance

Alan M. Garber
2009
The Real Promise of Comparative Effectiveness Research

Peter R. Orszag
2008
New Ideas about Human Behavior in Economics and Medicine

Mark B. McClellan
2007
Improving Quality and Value for Medicare Beneficiaries

Zach W. Hall
2006
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

William H. Frist
2005
Manhattan Project for the 21st Century

President Emeritus Lawrence H. Summers
2004

Health Care and Economics: What Can We Learn?

Gail R. Wilensky
2003
1991 Revisited – Can We Be Smarter the Second Time Around?

Victor R. Fuchs
2002
Non-Medical Determinants of Health

Robert D. Reischauer
2001
Hard to Swallow: Prescription Drug Coverage for Medicare