Eagleton Faculty, Staff and Visiting Associates
B.A. degree, Duke University; J.D. degree, New York University School of Law
Heather Howard is a lecturer in public affairs at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Health and Wellbeing. She teaches courses on implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the social determinants of health, state and local health policy, and gun violence prevention policy. She is director of the State Health and Value Strategies program, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded program focused on assisting states with transforming their health care systems to be affordable, equitable and innovative.
Howard served as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Health and Senior Services from 2008-2010, overseeing a cabinet-level agency with a budget of $3.5 billion and staff of 1,700, responsible for public health services, regulation of health care institutions, senior services, and health care policy and research. She also has significant federal experience, having worked as Senator Jon Corzine’s chief of staff, as associate director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and senior policy advisor for First Lady Hillary Clinton, as an honors attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division Health Care Task Force, and for Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey (D-NY). In 2017 and 2018, she co-chaired New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s health care transition committee and was later appointed by Governor Murphy to the New Jersey Restart and Recovery Advisory Council (Health Care Subcommittee), New Jersey State Health Benefits Value and Quality Task Force, and Multistate Gun Violence Research Consortium.
Howard received her B.A. degree from Duke University and her J.D. degree from New York University School of Law. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey with her husband and teenage son.