Stanford health policy expert Karen Eggleston has been appointed as a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), effective Sept. 1, 2015, on a continuing term.

Eggleston, who leads the Asia Health Policy Program at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (APARC), is a recognized authority on comparative health policy and the economics of the demographic transition in Asia, especially China.

“FSI is delighted that Karen’s impressive scholarship and strong program leadership has earned her a promotion to the position of senior fellow,” FSI director Michael McFaul said. “It’s a well-deserved honor and the institute looks forward to working with her for many years to come.”

Trained as an economist, Eggleston first came to Stanford as a center fellow in 2007 to lead a program on Asian health policy in comparative perspective. Since then, the program has grown into an innovative hub of research, training and policy outreach.

Eggleston’s new appointment also carries membership in the University’s Academic Council and status as a principal investigator for research projects. Her research areas include population aging, healthcare productivity (“value for money”), insurance and payment incentives, and health system governance. Currently, she is leading a comparative study of “value for money” in diabetes care, with patient-level data from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

“Karen has been a pioneering force at our center, and in the area of Asia health policy,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC. “Her strong record of scholarly accomplishment has enriched the intellectual life at Stanford, and we look forward to continuing to support her research and teaching endeavors.”

Eggleston has led many crosscutting initiatives at Stanford including the organization of multiple international conferences in the United States and abroad. This past year, she co-organized a conference on China’s health reforms and primary care, held at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

She has testified on China’s health system before a U.S. congressional commission, and in 2014, spoke at the Jackson Hole Symposium of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Eggleston teaches students through Stanford’s East Asian Studies program and is an active author/editor of books and publications, including a special issue of the Journal of the Economics of Ageing (2014) focused on the economic implications of population aging in China and India. She expects to release two edited volumes through Shorenstein APARC’s publishing program shortly.

Eggleston is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research as well as affiliated with Stanford’s Center for Health Policy / Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.