Susannah Rogers Fox is an American healthcare and information technology researcher who was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from May 2015 to January 2017. Prior to this, she spent 14 years at the

Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...

studying the impact of Internet technology on healthcare, and was involved in the initial launching of U.S. News & World Report's website in 1995.

Education and early career

Fox graduated Wesleyan University with a B.A. in anthropology in 1992. After graduating she worked for The Harwood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and then

RealNetworks RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of artificial intelligence and computer vision based products. RealNetworks was a pioneer in Internet streaming software and services. They are based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The company also p ...

. In 1995 she joined U.S. News & World Report, helping to launch their website that year, and becoming its lead editor in 1999. Beginning in 2000, Fox spent 14 years at the

, directing their research on consumer-focused health and technology. Fox examined the social impact of technology on healthcare, including patients and caregivers who were crowdsourcing diagnoses and creating their own medical devices to solve their unique problems. This led her to later cite the maker movement as a promising source of healthcare innovation, and to support lowering entry barriers for innovators from nontraditional backgrounds, using methods such as altering existing medical devices or using

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

to engineer new devices. After her time at Pew, Fox spent a year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Department of Health and Human Services

Fox was Chief Technology Officer of the Department of Health and Human Services during the last portion of the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

, from May 2015 to January 2017. The position was initiated during the Obama administration, and was intended to act as an ambassador to the entrepreneurial and technology community in Silicon Valley and coordinating with the White House

Office of Science and Technology Policy An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

, rather than being focused on the agency's day-to-day technology needs. Fox was not an engineer by trade, but drew on her anthropology background to connect healthcare professionals with structural solutions, calling herself an "Internet geologist".

Personal life

Fox's father was an account executive for IBM, and her mother was an editor at the Philadelphia newspaper ''U.S. 1''. Fox married Eric Ian Halperin, a trial lawyer, in 1998.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Susan Year of birth missing (living people) Women chief technology officers American chief technology officers Wesleyan University alumni Living people United States Department of Health and Human Services officials