Charles E. Phelps

Provost
University of Rochester

Charles E. Phelps trained in Business Economics at the University of Chicago (PhD, 1973) emphasizing the economics of health care, following his BA degree from Pomona College (Claremont, CA) in 1965, and an MBA (hospital administration) from the University of Chicago (1968). He worked at the RAND Corporation from 1971 - 1984 as Staff Economist, Senior Staff Economist, and (in his last 5 years there) as Director of RAND's Program on Regulatory Policies and Institutions. While at RAND, he studied issues related to health policy, natural resources and envirorunental policy, and energy policy.

Professor Phelps moved to the University of Rochester in 1984, as Director of the Public Policy Analysis Program, a graduate program offered by the Department of Political Science, in conjunction with the Department of Economics. In 1989, he left that position to become Chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. He served in that role until 1994, when he was selected for his current position, Provost of the University of Rochester. As Provost, Phelps oversees the entire academic activity of the University, including all teaching and research in each of the University's six schools.

Phelps has achieved national and international recognition for his scholarly research. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1991. He served from 1990 - 1994 as a peer reviewer for grant applications to the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research of the United States government. He has been Associate Editor of three professional journals (Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Journal of Risk and Uncertainty), and served 3 years as a Trustee for the Society for Medical Decision Making. He has published over 50 peer reviewed papers and manuscripts, and a textbook, Health Economics, which serves as the basis for an economics course he teaches annually.

Phelps is married to Dale L. Phelps, M.D., Director of the Division of Neonatology in the Department of Pediatrics of the School of Medicine and Dentistry of the university. They live in Pittsford, NY.