About Me

Karen Matsuoka, PhD, is a social entrepreneur, health policy expert, and thought leader at the intersection of health and health care innovation, human-centered design, and policy.

A Rhodes Scholar with significant experience in private, public, and academic sectors, Dr. Matsuoka has served in the White House Office of Management and Budget, in Congress as part of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, and in the Maryland Department of Health as the inaugural Director of the Health Systems and Infrastructure Administration where she directed the state's strategic health reform efforts.

Author of over 20 policy briefs and peer reviewed journal articles, Dr. Matsuoka has also lectured at the University of Oxford, conducted research at the RAND Corporation, and served as Research Director for the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Matsuoka is committed to bridging private sector, policy, academic, and health administration fields to spur health care innovation, redesign health systems to be more person-centered, and to translate evidence into clinical and policy practice.

Although a health policy expert by profession, Karen spends much of her free time as a history detective. Her personal mission is to unearth and share the courageous stories of Japanese American Internment-era civil disobedience that have yet to be told, including those of her grandparents.

Having served on the Board of Directors of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, she was the creative force behind “Completing the Story,” a photodocumentary oral history project which documented the resettlement of Japanese Americans in the Santa Clara Valley after World War II and won a California Civil Liberties Public Education Program grant.

Dr. Matsuoka earned her D.Phil. and M.Phil. with University Distinction in Social Policy from Oxford University, and her BA and MA in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Stanford University, Cum Laude and with University Distinction and Departmental Honors.

Resumé

Awards, Publications & Recognitions

Education

Semifinalist for America’s Next Great Author, created by Kwame Alexander, Arielle Eckstut, and David Henry Sterry.
Author of over 20 policy-related publications, peer reviewed journal articles, and book chapters, including a chapter on person-centered health reform in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Knowledge to Action: Accelerating Progress in Health, Well-Being, and Equity; a chapter on the UK National Health System in the International Encyclopedia of Public Health; and From Pilots to Practice: Speeding the Movement of Successful Pilots to Effective Practice, an Institute of Medicine publication on accelerating health care innovation.
Boothe Prize runner up for best essay from Stanford University.
Invited to contribute a blog post for Discover Nikkei, a platform hosted by the Japanese American National Museum.
Served on the Board of Directors for the Japanese American Museum of San Jose from 1998-2010.
Winner of a California Civil Liberties Public Education Program grant (on behalf of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose) for “Completing the Story,” a photo-documentary oral history project about the resettlement of Japanese Americans in the Santa Clara Valley after their release from wartime incarceration camps.

PhD (DPhil) in Social Policy and MA (MPhil) in Comparative Social Policy, with Distinction, from the University of Oxford.
BA and MA in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Cum Laude and with Departmental Honors and University Distinction, from Stanford University.
Invited back to Stanford in 2014 to participate in the d.School professional development program to train leaders from the health care and health policy fields in human-centered design techniques to address complex social issues like health reform.
Rhodes Scholar (California and 1999).