Dean, Law School
Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law
University of Pennsylvania
Theodore W. Ruger is the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law. He is a scholar of constitutional law, specializing in the study of judicial
authority, and an expert on health law and pharmaceutical regulation.
Ruger holds an A.B. from Williams College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and he was a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Prior to joining the Law School, Ruger practiced law at Ropes; Gray in Boston and Williams; Connolly in Washington, D.C., and began his academic career at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.
Ruger joined Penn Law in 2004 and previously served as Deputy Dean of the Law School. He has taught a wide range of classes in constitutional law, health law and regulation, legislation, and food and drug law and policy. He has also served in a variety of critical roles in the school, including three terms as a member of the faculty appointments committee, one as chair and another as co-chair. He also served as an advisor to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Northwestern Law Review, and as the centerpiece of a symposium in Perspectives on Politics, a leading peer-reviewed political science journal.
His current research draws on his broader work on judicial power and constitutionalism, and addresses the manner in which American legal institutions — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have shaped the field of health law over the past two centuries.
Richard Wender, MD is the Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He has dedicated his career to leading medical and public health efforts that strive to improve the quality of primary care, implement population health, and address social determinants of health in the continuous pursuit of equity for all people.
Dr. Wender spent the first 33 years of his career in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, including 12 years as the Alumni Professor and Chair of the Department. At Jefferson, Dr. Wender and his team spearheaded innovative programs in geriatric medicine, palliative care, the patient-centered medical home, quality-based payment, refugee health, and community partnership.
From 2013 to 2020, Dr. Wender served as the first Chief Cancer Control Officer of the American Cancer Society. He helped to build a cancer control team that launched a transformative national initiative to achieve 80% colorectal cancer screening rates in every community, and a national and global campaign to increase HPV vaccination rates. Dr. Wender has continuously advocated for the importance of preventive care and for the creation of an effective bridge between primary care and public health. As Chair of the American Cancer Society National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable and a member of the steering committee for the President’s Cancer Panel cancer screening initiative, Dr. Wender led efforts to promote the safe provision of cancer screening services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Rachel M. Werner is the Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine as well as the Robert D. Eilers Memorial – William Maul Measey Professor of Health Care Management and Economics at the Wharton School. She is also a physician at the Philadelphia VA.
Over the last 20 years, Dr. Werner has built a foundational research program examining the effects of health care payment and related policies on health care delivery, using methods designed to draw causal inference from observational data. She has investigated the unintended consequences of quality improvement incentives, and was among the first to recognize that public reporting of quality information may worsen racial disparities.
