Matthew M. Kavanagh, PhD

Matthew M. Kavanagh, PhD

Matthew M. Kavanagh, PhD, is the Director of Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, a cross-campus collaboration across the School of Health and O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He is also Assistant Professor of Global Health and Visiting Professor of Law.

Dr. Kavanagh’s research and policy work sits at the intersection of law, global health, and political science with a focus on the political determinants of health, law and policy during pandemics like AIDS and COVID-19, and on inequality as a driver of disease. A political scientist and legal analyst by training, he has served in a range of roles inside and outside academia including at the United Nations as Deputy Executive Director ad interim at UNAIDS and as head of policy for several NGOs in the US and Southern Africa.

He has been a visiting researcher at the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights, and International Law in Johannesburg and the University of the West Indies Law Faculty at Cave Hill while conducting research in South Africa, Malawi, Haiti, Lesotho, India, Barbados and Thailand. Funding for his work has come from the National Science Foundation, USAID, U.S. State Department, World Health Organization, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations and others. He has served on various scientific and technical advisory bodies for UNAIDS and the World Health Organization and on the council of the American Political Science Association Health Politics and Policy Section. He has presented his research and analysis before the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Right to Health, members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, European Parliament, and South African Department of Trade and Industry. His work has appeared in The Lancet, Foreign Policy, JAMA, Journal of International Affairs, Studies in Comparative International Development, Health & Human Rights and other leading journals and he have been interviewed in outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, and Science on the politics of global health.

Education:

• University of Pennsylvania, PhD & MA, Political Science

• University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Certificate of Law, Health Law,

• Harvard University, M.Ed., Communities & Policy

• Vassar College, BA, Political Science

When not engaged with global health policy, I spend my time raising my pre-schooler and teaching people how to scuba dive.