Katherine Ho, the John L. Weinberg Professor of Economics and Business Policy at Princeton University, passed away on December 8. She was 53 years old.
A native of York, England, Dr. Ho earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge. She began her career in civil service in England, ultimately becoming the youngest ever private secretary to the Minister of Health. After a stint working for McKinsey & Company, Dr. Ho completed a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University.
In 2005, Dr. Ho joined the faculty at Columbia University in New York City and earned tenure in 2013. Five years later, she joined Princeton University as co-director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Throughout her career, Dr. Ho also served as a visiting faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Yale University’s Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, as well as a visiting scholar at Northwestern University’s Center for the Study of Industrial Organization.
As a scholar, Dr. Ho centered her work on industrial organization and health economics, particularly how the structure of health and medical care markets, as well as interactions between healthcare companies, impact patients. Through her research, she created models to measure the economic and policymaking implications of issues such as prescription drug pricing, narrow provider networks, and insurer competition, among others.
Dr. Ho’s expertise led to service on the editorial boards of several academic journals. She was a member of numerous professional and research organizations, including the American Economic Association, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Center for Economic Policy Research. Additionally, she advised the Congressional Budget Office on issues relating to the healthcare industry.