A career trajectory and daily life don\u2019t have to be linear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Gusmano studied political science at SUNY Albany and was planning to attend law school, but quickly lost interest when learning about the typical lifestyle of lawyers. Instead, his interest in the Constitution led him to a research-oriented career in health policy.<\/p>\n
Now at Lehigh, he maintains a diverse set of roles: from a professor of health policy, to associate dean for academic affairs, to the director of the Center for Ethics, co-director of the health, medicine and society program, to research projects on healthcare patterns across the globe.<\/p>\n
For Gusmano, every day is different and his path to these positions wasn\u2019t direct.<\/p>\n
As an undergraduate, Gusmano took courses on how people make decisions that govern their lives and political institutions, which sparked his interest in public policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gusmano also studied unequal access to health care in the U.S., where he became fascinated with ethics. His passion for public policy and ethics laid the groundwork for his career as a professor, researcher and administrator.<\/p>\n
Gusmano now teaches justice, equity and ethics in population health at Lehigh. He said he teaches his students how to make a good argument about ethical dilemmas involving aging populations, poverty and immigration. At the end of the semester, students debate issues such as populations, poverty and immigration.<\/p>\n
The point of ethics isn\u2019t to reach one correct answer, he said, but to develop better arguments and think critically about others\u2019 arguments.<\/p>\n
Since 2001, Gusmano has collaborated with Victor Rodman, a professor emeritus at New York University, on the World Cities Project<\/a>, comparing public health systems of four major cities: New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. The pair published two books on their findings called \u201cGrowing Older in World Cities\u201d and \u201cHealth Care in World Cities.\u201d<\/p>\n Through this research, Gusmano\u2019s team received contracts from these city governments. He said policymakers use the team\u2019s data and analysis to improve their health care systems and in exchange, the governments fund the team and provide exclusive government health insurance data for further research.\u00a0<\/p>\n Each government has a health care problem they\u2019re trying to improve. For example, they could be interested in geographic inequities in care and improving preventive care.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gusmano\u2019s team analyzed the outcomes that would be related to these problems and presented their findings to the government and published academic papers.<\/p>\n \u201cI think our work has largely exposed inequities and contributed to a better understanding about what governments need to do to improve access to healthcare and reduce large inequities in health care,\u201d Gusmano said.<\/p>\n He said one frustration his research documented was racial and ethnic inequities in avoidable hospitalizations and treatment of heart disease.<\/p>\n Avoidable hospitalization is when a patient is admitted for a condition that could\u2019ve been treated at an outpatient facility if there\u2019d been timely care. Although avoidable hospitalizations have declined over time as health insurance has expanded, challenges remain.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe expansion of health insurance helped a lot, but I am deeply concerned about recent policy changes that may undermine that law and reduce coverage,\u201d Gusmano said.<\/p>\n He also conducts research at the Hastings Center for Bioethics in New York. His project focuses on the ethics of gene therapies, which involve modifying a defective gene or replacing a missing gene that causes a disease.<\/p>\n One of the biggest issues with gene therapy is the cost. According to Gusmano, a one time infusion can exceed $4 million.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re worried about equity,\u201d he said. \u201cThere seems to be growing evidence that they do work well, but if that\u2019s the case, are the people who need them getting them?\u201d<\/p>\n Collaborating with Karen Mashke, a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center for Bioethics<\/a>, the pair distributed a survey to physicians across the country, gathering their perspectives on gene therapy.\u00a0<\/p>\n They also conducted over 80 interviews with gene therapy developers, advocacy groups and experts at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.<\/p>\n Due to his successes, in October 2025, Gusmano was nominated as the first Iacocca Chair for the College of Health.<\/p>\n