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Dr. Christopher J. Ruhm earned a PhD in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. He served on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1991 and as the Jefferson-Pilot Excellence Professor of Economics since 1997. Dr. Ruhm is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. During the 1996-97 academic year he served as senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where his main responsibilities were in the areas of health policy and aging. Prior to joining University of North Carolina Greensboro, he taught at Boston University and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis University.

Dr. Ruhm teaches in the areas of labor and health economics, applied microeconomics, and quantitative methods. He has conducted research on the impact of parental leave policies and mandated employment benefits, causes and effects of job displacements, transition into retirement, the determinants of health and risky behaviors, and the economic consequences of alcohol and illegal drug policies. He has written more than 40 articles which have been published as book chapters or in journals such as the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Human Resources. He is a member of the American Economics Association, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, International Health Economics Association, Society of Labor Economists, and Southern Economic Association.