Dr. David Vanness
- Senior Associate Dean Designate
Office of the Dean of the Fox Graduate School
- Email djv76@psu.edu
- Phone 814-865-2516
Biography
Dr. David J. Vanness is Senior Associate Dean Designate of the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School at Penn State. He began his appointment on May 11, 2026.
Prior to his appointment, Dr. Vanness served as Professor-in-Charge of the doctoral program in Health Policy and Administration at Penn State. He also held the role of Chair of the Penn State Graduate Council and contributed to University-wide strategic initiatives, including the Academic Portfolio and Program Review and the Joint Committee on the University Budget. Over the course of his career, he has been the primary or methodological dissertation advisor for more than 50 doctoral graduates across a range of fields, including economics, health policy, industrial engineering, population health sciences, and demography. Before joining Penn State in 2018, he held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and research positions at the Mayo Clinic and United BioSource Corporation.
Dr. Vanness continues to lead an active research program focused on developing and applying methods rooted in health economics and decision science to value health interventions and policies. A central focus of his work is the development of cost-effectiveness analysis methods and policy, including the estimation and application of health opportunity cost thresholds, which are benchmarks used to determine whether new medical treatments and technologies are likely to improve population health. Dr. Vanness also works on advancing Bayesian decision analytic methods for optimizing health interventions using the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST). He serves on the editorial board of the journal Value in Health and as a member of the advisory board for the Tufts Center for Evaluation of Value and Risk Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry.
Dr. Vanness received his bachelor's degree with majors in Economics (Honors) and Government, summa cum laude, from Georgetown University, as well as his doctorate and master’s degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.