Christina Paxson

Christina Paxson is the 19th President of Brown University and professor of economics and public policy. She assumed the role of president on July 1, 2012.

She worked with students, faculty and staff to develop and launch Building on Distinction, a strategic plan for Brown that informs the University’s growth and progress.

The plan builds on the progress of the last decade and provides a vision for uniting innovative education and outstanding research to benefit the community, the nation and the world.

As an economist, Paxson’s research focuses on economic development and health, with specific attention to the relationship between economic status and health over the life course, and on the health and wellbeing of children.

She has authored numerous research articles on topics ranging from educational attainment among African orphans, to the health and development of children in Ecuador, to the influence of Hurricane Katrina on low-income families.

Prior to her appointment as President, Paxson was dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs and the Hughes Rogers Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. While at Princeton, she was the founding director of the National Institute on Aging-funded Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging. In 2000, she founded the Center for Health and Wellbeing at the Woodrow Wilson School, serving as the center’s director until 2009.