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Harvard scholar to deliver McGovern Lecture in Family, Health and Human Values

Government professor Daniel Carpenter will give address on health care regulation on Oct. 24

Dr. Daniel Carpenter

The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences has invited Dr. Daniel Carpenter, a noted professor in government, to give the John P. McGovern Endowed Lecture in Family, Health and Human Values at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, October 24 at the Rockwell Pavilion in the M.D. Anderson Library.

Dr. Carpenter is the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government and Director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, as well as the Director of the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

His research focuses on public bureaucracies and government regulation, particularly regulation of health and financial products. His October 24th talk is entitled, “How Regulation Makes Markets in American Health Care.”

“With health care reform and the implications of the Affordable Care Act at the center of the news right now, Dr. Carpenter’s work on health policy and regulation is especially timely,” said Catherine Patterson, CLASS associate dean of graduate studies and professor of history. “We are excited to invite him to our campus for the McGovern Lecture.”

In 2010, Dr. Carpenter published Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA, an 800-page examination of the federal Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical regulation in the United States.

His research technique mixes theoretical, historical, statistical and mathematical analyses to deconstruct the development of political institutions, particularly in the United States.

For the FDA book, Carpenter looked beyond the FDA’s archives and complied records from Houston’s M.D. Anderson, the Mayo Clinic and other research hospitals, as well as drug companies, medical associations and other researchers to develop a full picture of the FDA’s global influence and impact.

His latest book, Preventing Regulatory Capture: Special Interest Influence and How to Limit It, is an edited volume that bringing together the work of 17 scholars from across the social sciences. It will be published in November by Cambridge University Press.

In addition to his ongoing teaching and research, Dr. Carpenter recently launched a long-term project on petitioning in North American political development, examining comparisons and connections to petitioning histories in Europe and India. He hopes to draw upon the millions of petitions in local, state, and federal archives to create an educational, genealogical, and scholarly resource for citizens, students, and scholars.

Dr. Carpenter graduated from Georgetown University in 1989 with distinction in Honors Government and received his doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago in 1996. Before joing the Harvard faculty in 2002, he taught at Princeton University and the University of Michigan.

The John P. McGovern Endowment was established in 1999 and supports the John P. McGovern Annual Award Lectureship in Family, Health, and Human Values in CLASS at UH. This series focuses on speakers with notable expertise in the area of family, health and human values. Each speaker is presented with the John P. McGovern Award Medal.


WHAT: John P. McGovern Endowed Lecture
Keynote speaker: Harvard Government Professor Daniel Carpenter
“How Regulation Makes Markets in American Health Care”

WHEN: Thursday, October 24
Reception: 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Lecture: 6:30 – 8 p.m.

WHO: Free and open to the public

WHERE:  University of Houston
Rockwell Pavilion in the M.D. Anderson Library
http://www.uh.edu/campus_map/buildings/L.php
Entrance One off Calhoun Road.
Parking is available in Lot 1E
http://www.uh.edu/campus_map/buildings/WC.php