Christopher J. Ruhm is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Virginia (UVA) and held previous academic positions at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) and Boston University. He received his doctorate in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. During the 1996-97 academic year he served as Senior Economist on President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. He is currently a Research Associate in the Economics of Health and Children’s Programs of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany.

Professor Ruhm’s research focuses on the role of government policies in helping parents with young children balance the competing needs of work and family life, and on examining how various aspects of health are produced He is co-author of Time Out With Baby: The Case for Paid Parental Leave (published by Zero to Three) and has authored more than 175 publications.

He has received four faculty excellence awards from the Frank Batten School and the UVA, a senior faculty research excellence award from UNCG and was recently named a Distinguished Fellow of the Southern Economics Association.