About the Speaker

David Rubin MD, MSCE is director of PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. With a content focus on developing health system and public program innovation to meet the needs of high-risk children, he also serves as director of Population Health Innovation at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, supervising a team that develops and implements integrated solutions using clinical care and technology to more proactively identify and provide needed services to at-risk patients across primary and subspecialty care settings.

To date, he has authored more than 120 manuscripts spanning peer-reviewed research, policy analyses, and edited chapters in prominent pediatric texts, including seminal manuscripts in JAMA, Health Affairs and Pediatrics on quality of healthcare coverage and access for children in low-income families and the delivery system interventions that can return value for public health programs. He is particularly drawn to the challenges of meeting the needs of patients receiving publicly funded health insurance through programs like Medicaid and CHIP. He has made numerous presentations to the medical profession and to city, state, and national leaders, including the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, to guide evidence-informed health policy decisions on behalf of children across the country.

Dr. Rubin is one of the lead investigators on PolicyLab’s COVID-19 forecasting model, known as “COVID-Lab: Mapping COVID-19 In Your Community,” which tracked coronavirus transmission and test positivity rates across all U.S. counties, and provided four-week case incidence forecasts for more than 800 counties with active outbreaks between April 2020 and May 2021. Dr. Rubin and his collaborators received national attention for this unique project, which they used to advise the White House Coronavirus Task Force, governors, state public health officials and Philadelphia leaders on emerging hotspots and local strategies for reducing the spread of the virus. The modeling project also informed PolicyLab’s school reopening guidance and guidance for in-person schooling for which Dr. Rubin is a lead author, and that leaders from school districts throughout the country have cited as informing their COVID-19 safety plans.

At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rubin is a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and a former associate program director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. Externally, he is a past member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Task Force on Foster Care and their Committee for Early Education, Adoption & Dependent Care. Based on the large body of this work, he was appointed in 2013 by the President to the White House Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse & Neglect Fatalities, which was tasked for recommending a national strategy to prevent child abuse fatalities. He is also a past member of the Pentagon's Military Family Readiness Council, which is tasked with strengthening programs for families across the armed services.

Dr. Rubin is a practicing primary care pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania. He also completed a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in child maltreatment at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Past Speakers

2019
“Breaking our Fossil Fuel Addiction: Possibly the Largest Health Opportunity of the Century”
Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH

2018
"Why Global Health Matters;  New Insights into the 21stCentury" 
Roger I. Glass, MD, PhD,
Associate Director for International Research, National Institutes of Health (NIH)

2017
"The Impact of Green Chemistry on Global Health" 
Terrence J. Collins PhD,
Director of the Institute for Green Science at Carnegie Mellon University 

2016
"Tackling Global Health in Our Own Backyard"
Jeffrey Brenner, MD
Executive Director of the Camden Coalition

2015
"Global Health Equity: How the Next Generation of Leaders Can Make a Difference"
Barbara Bush
CEO and Co-Founder, Global Health Corps.

2014
"Making Healthcare as Accessible as a Coca-Cola®"
Eric Bing, MD
Senior Fellow & Director of Global Health, George W. Bush Institute, Professor of Global Health, Southern Methodist University, and author of Pharmacy on a Bicycle.

2013
“Biopharmaceutical Industry Impact on the Developed and Developing World”
P. Roy Vagelos
Retired Chairman of the Board and CEO of Merck, and current Chairman of the Board of Regeneron

2012
“Noncommunicable Disease: The Global Challenge”
Sir George Alleyne
Director Emeritus for the Pan American Health Organization

2011
“Saving Children’s Lives: The Millennium Village’s Approach”
Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH
Director of Health for the Millennium Villages Project

2010
“Reaching Out to the World: The Role of Institutional Partnerships” a lecture on the global health response to Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake
Dr. Mirta Roses Periago
Director of the Pan American Health Organization