Vice President and Director
Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
Washington, DC

Biography

Brian D. Smedley is Vice President and Director of the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC.   Formerly, Smedley was Research Director and co-founder of a communications, research and policy organization, The Opportunity Agenda (www.opportunityagenda.org), which seeks to build the national will to expand opportunity for all.

Prior to helping launch The Opportunity Agenda, Smedley was a Senior Program Officer in the Division of Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), where he served as Study Director for the IOM reports, In the Nation’s Compelling Interest: Ensuring Diversity in the Health Care Workforce and Unequal Treatment:  Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, among other reports on diversity in the health professions and minority health research policy.  

Smedley came to the IOM from the American Psychological Association, where he worked on a wide range of social, health, and education policy topics in his capacity as Director for Public Interest Policy.  Prior to working at the APA, Smedley served as a Congressional Science Fellow in the office of Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-VA), sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.   Among his awards and distinctions, in 2009 Smedley received the Congressional Black Caucus Congressional Leadership in Advocacy Award; in 2004 he was honored by the Rainbow/PUSH coalition as a “Health Trailblazer” award winner; and in 2002 he was awarded the Congressional Black Caucus “Healthcare Hero” award.