Eduardo J. Gómez, a highly respected expert in global health who currently serves as a senior lecturer in the department of international development at King’s College London, will join Lehigh’s College of Health as a tenured associate professor. Gómez will arrive on campus early next month.
Gómez’s research focuses on the politics of domestic and international health policy reform, with a particular focus on the roles that institutions, civil society and foreign policy play in health outcomes. He has written extensively about health policy in BRICS economies, and is currently working on his third book, which will be published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Tentatively titled Junk Food Politics, the book will examine the influence of the junk food industry in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
His work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, policy journals and magazines, and he has served as a frequent contributor to media outlets including CNN and the BBC.
“As a political scientist, I have always been interested in trying to understand how political science can improve our understanding of global health problems, and how we as political scientists can provide new insights into global health,” Gómez said. “This is a new area of research, one that public and global health officials are finally realizing is important. There is a growing understanding that we really need to study health from a very rigorous, scientific perspective.”
“I am very pleased to welcome Professor Eduardo Gómez to the university and to the faculty of the College of Health,” said Whitney P. Witt, Inaugural Dean of the College of Health. “Dr. Gómez is an internationally renowned expert about the role of politics on global health policy and outcomes. The political economy is a critical determinant of population health, but the mechanisms by which this operates are not well understood. Dr. Gómez is leading the field with groundbreaking research on how politics and policy influence the incidence of both chronic and infectious diseases across the globe—including HIV, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and Zika. His work stands to change how and when we intervene to promote effective policy that address the social determinants of health. I am excited to see Dr. Gómez’s novel research and educational programming in health policy grow here at Lehigh.”
Prior to joining the faculty at King’s College London, Gómez was an assistant professor at Rutgers University and, prior to that, a pre-doctoral fellow in the Politics and Governance Group of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health. He also has previously worked for Oxfam, the RAND Corporation, World Bank, IMF, George Soros Foundation and the Inter-American Dialogue.
Gómez earned his Ph.D. in political science from Brown University, and also holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. He was elected to Term Membership at the Council of Foreign Relations in 2009, and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, having served at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Gómez said he was drawn to Lehigh not only because of the university’s position as a leading research university, but also for the opportunity to help build a truly innovative new college—one that will tackle the greatest challenges in global health through the lens of varied academic perspectives. The college will enroll its inaugural class this year, and will officially welcome students at the launch of the 2020-2021 academic year.
“I’ve always known Lehigh for its amazing academic reputation, as well as for being a very strong research university,” Gómez said. “It’s also very committed to undergraduate education, and that was very attractive to me. I am very excited about the opportunity to come in, join a new college and be able to help create something amazing and wonderful.”
