Soonman Kwon
Professor Soonman Kwon is a health economist and has worked over 30 years on UHC, health finance and systems, and health industry. Before leading the KHIDI, which is a government agency allocating public R&D funds to the health sector (researchers, hospitals, pharmaceutical industry, etc.), he was Professor and Dean of...
Biography
Professor Soonman Kwon is a health economist and has worked over 30 years on UHC, health finance and systems, and health industry. Before leading the KHIDI, which is a government agency allocating public R&D funds to the health sector (researchers, hospitals, pharmaceutical industry, etc.), he was Professor and Dean of the School of Public Health, Seoul National University (SNU). He has held visiting positions at the Harvard School of Public Health, London School of Economics, University of Toronto, University of Tokyo, Peking University, and University of Bremen. He was the Chief of the Health Sector Group in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2016-2017. He was the founding director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health System and Financing at SNU. He received the Excellence in Education award of Seoul National University in 2020.
He is the president of the Korean Society of Health Policy and Management and has served as president of the Korean Health Economic Association, the Korean Association of Schools of Public Health, and the Korean Gerontological Society. He is the Asia Region Editor of Health Policy (Elsevier) and International Journal of Health Economics and Management (Springer), and was the editor of the Korean Journal of Public Health and the Korean Journal of Health Economics. He holds PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1993) and taught at the University of Southern California School of Public Policy until 1996.
He has been a member of board or advisory committees of Health Systems Global (HSG), WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization), and WHO Centre for Health and Development. He has occasionally been a short-term consultant of WHO, World Bank, and GIZ for health system and financing in Algeria, Armenia, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.