Richard A. Axilrod (WG’85) and Nancy M. Axilrod, Penn parents, have made a $2 million gift to establish the Axilrod Term Fund in Health and Inequality. The fund has enabled Penn Arts and Sciences to recruit three new faculty members who will help establish Penn as a worldwide center for the analysis of inequality and health, with a specific focus on the distribution of health outcomes and how this distribution is shaped by social policies.
The three new Axilrod Fellows recruited by the School are Juan Pablo Atal, assistant professor of economics; Courtney Boen, assistant professor of sociology; and Morgan Hoke, assistant professor of anthropology. Dr. Atal studies public economics and industrial organization, with a focus on health economics, while Dr. Boen documents how racial discrimination and contact with the criminal justice system, among other factors, contribute to racial disparities in biomarkers of health and aging. Dr. Hoke is a biocultural anthropologist who examines the economic, cultural and ecological influences on infant feeding practices and how those practices perpetuate economic and social inequalities.