Associate Research Professor
George Washington University School of Public Health

Christine C. Ferguson, JD, whose career in federal and state health policy spans more than two decades, joined the George Washington School of Public Health and Health Services' Department of Health Policy as an associate research professor in 2006. Ferguson has been engaged in the development of an educational program in state health policy and concentrates her research on health reform, health services for vulnerable populations and health systems reform -- areas in which she is widely known and well respected.

From 1981 to 1995, Ferguson served as counsel and deputy chief of staff to the late U.S. Senator John H. Chafee (R-RI), where she led his wide-ranging efforts to reform national health and social policy for all Americans, with a special focus on health services to medically underserved populations. In this role, Ferguson served as lead staff negotiator for the Mainstream Senators in their 1993-1994 attempt to develop a bipartisan health reform proposal. For her efforts to this end, she was heralded as a "profile in courage" by Haynes Johnson and David Broder in The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point.

Ferguson served as secretary of the Rhode Island Department of Human Services from 1995 to 2001, under Governor Lincoln Almonds's two-term administration. In this capacity, she oversaw nearly one-third of the state's annual budget. At the same time, her groundbreaking work in Medicaid reform, early childhood education, child care and child welfare reform was nationally recognized. As commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health under Governor Mitt Romney from 2003 to 2005, Ferguson led the Administration's efforts in the areas of emergency preparedness, substance abuse services, medical errors reduction, and early childhood education and child care. Most recently, Ferguson served as president of First Focus, a special initiative funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies.

A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Washington College of Law at American University, Ferguson currently serves as a member of the Board on Children, Youth and Families of the National Academy of Sciences and has served in a leadership capacity at the National Academy for State Health Policy and other organizations.