Allison M. Buttenheim

Allison M. Buttenheim is the Patricia M. Bleznak Silverstein and Howard A. Silverstein Term Endowed Professor in Global Women's Health in the Department of Family and Community Health at Penn Nursing and a professor of nursing and health policy in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Dr. Buttenheim has also been a visiting professor in the Institute on Global Health Innovation (IGHI) at Imperial College London. At Penn, she is scientific director at the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE), director of engagement for the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI), and associate director with the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP). Dr. Buttenheim is a public health researcher and behavioral scientist who combines her interest in behavioral economics with a focus on infectious disease prevention. Her research and practice activities address vaccination services and vaccine acceptance, HIV prevention, and using “nudge units” to design and implementation interventions that change individual behavior and address structural barriers to healthy behaviors. With a particular interest in behaviorally-informed intervention design, she has published multiple papers demonstrating the potential for behavioral insights and behavioral design to yield high-impact intervention designs. Dr. Buttenheim holds a PhD in public health from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from Stanford University along with a BA in history from Yale University.

updated 2024