Lanhee Chen

Lanhee J. Chen, Ph.D. is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies, Co-Chair of the Health Care Policy Working Group at the Hoover Institution. He is also the Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University. In addition to his academic appointments, Dr. Chen is a leading geopolitical and critical issues adviser to global business leaders in the healthcare and technology industries as Partner and Co-Lead of the U.S. Public Affairs, Policy and Regulatory Practice at the Brunswick Group.

Dr. Chen currently serves on the boards of both the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) and El Camino Health, an integrated provider network in Northern California. His writings have appeared in a variety of outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and he is a contributing writer to the Opinion Page at the Los Angeles Times. He is also an NBC News Contributor who appears frequently on Meet the Press.

A senior adviser to several high-profile political campaigns and himself a candidate for statewide office in California, Dr. Chen has served in presidential administrations of both parties and worked in both business and academia.

In 2022, Dr. Chen was a candidate for California State Controller, the chief financial officer of one of the world’s biggest economies. He earned more votes than any other Republican candidate in the country in the general election, outperformed the rest of the statewide ticket by a significant margin, and won endorsements from every major newspaper in the state.

Dr. Chen has also advised four U.S. presidential campaigns. In 2012, he was policy director of the Romney-Ryan campaign, and served as Governor Mitt Romney’s chief policy adviser, a senior strategist on the campaign, and the person responsible for developing the campaign’s domestic and foreign policy. Four years later, he was a senior adviser to the presidential campaign of current U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Dr. Chen has served across five presidential administrations of both major political parties. From 2014 to 2018, he was a presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed member of the Social Security Advisory Board—an independent, bipartisan panel that advises the president, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs. He also served in the George W. Bush Administration as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Chen earned four degrees from Harvard University: his Ph.D. and A.M. in Political Science; a J.D. cumlaude; and an A.B. magnacum laude in Government. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and children.