Dana Goldman

Biography

Dana P. Goldman is a University Professor of Public Policy, Pharmacy, and Economics at the University of Southern California and the Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair and Founding Director of the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service.  He has led the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics since its inception, establishing the Center as one of the world’s premier health economics organizations (ranked 4th globally among 2,700+ institutions). He is a special advisor to the USC Provost and previously served as dean of the USC Price School of Public Policy from 2020 to 2024.

Dr. Goldman’s research spans economics, health, statistics, and public policy.  He has published more than 350 articles with 24,000+ citations. He pioneered a “Netflix model” to improve access to treatment and demonstrated the benefits of lowering copayments for the chronically ill.  He has served as a policy advisor to the Congressional Budget Office, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Covered California, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute, GRAIL, Edwards Lifesciences, and the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.  He served as a board member of Price Philanthropies, American Society of Health Economists, and ISPOR.  He has been awarded more than $200 million in research funding from a variety of sponsors, including the NIH.  His research is regularly featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, STAT, The Economist, NBC Nightly News, PBS NewsHour, CNN, NPR, and other media.

In 2024, USC appointed Dr. Goldman a University Professor to recognize his “decades of excellence as a policy leader and champion of interdisciplinary collaboration.”  He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Social Insurance, and National Academy of Public Administration — three of his field’s highest honors.  He is a recipient of the USC Associates Award, Alice Hersh Emerging Leader Award, MetLife Silver Scholar Award, NIHCM Research Award, and Robert Biller Outstanding Faculty Award, among other distinctions.  

Dr. Goldman is a committed mentor to students and faculty. He was a founding director of USC’s Center for Minority Aging Research, funded by NIH, which he led for 8 years.  Past trainees include faculty at Stanford, Harvard, Duke, UCLA, UCSF, USC, Tufts, the World Bank, University of Pennsylvania, and Vanderbilt.  He has received the USC Mellon Mentoring Award and several other teaching awards.

Dr. Goldman frequently engages with the private and non-profit sectors.  He co-founded EntityRisk and Precision Health Economics (now part of Precision Medicine Group).  He held the Distinguished Chair in Health Economics at RAND, where he directed the health economics program.  He serves as a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, and research associate with the National Bureau for Economic Research. 

Dr. Goldman graduated from Cornell University summa cum laude and earned a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.