Dan Gaylin is Executive Vice President for Research Programs at NORC at the University of Chicago. He oversees all of NORC’s research departments, guiding implementation, development, partnerships and collaborations, and strategic planning. He guides NORC’s government affairs activity and also the AP/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, for which he is co-author of the center's inaugural study, Civil Liberties and Security: 10 Years After 9-11.
Gaylin has 25 years of experience spanning government, think tanks and private research organizations. A nationally recognized expert in program evaluation, he has led multi-disciplinary teams in conducting health services research, policy formulation and policy analysis. Throughout his career, he has conducted numerous long-term, multi-million dollar projects that combine primary data collection and analysis, analysis of existing data, and qualitative research methods to gather and distill complex information of interest to policy makers, practitioners and the general public into recommendations for improving policy, programs, and practice. He has conducted research funded by a very wide range of Federal agencies and also has directed studies funded by major US foundations and private organizations. He has numerous publications in leading peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs.
Prior to NORC, Dan Gaylin served as Senior Advisor for Research and Planning at the US Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, he managed development and implementation of annual research plans, providing leadership on defining and prioritizing research topics and resources, selecting appropriate research methods, overseeing development of RFPs, negotiating awards, and directing project officers managing task orders. He also headed initiatives to coordinate data strategy and research activities across HHS to develop coherent mechanisms for identifying research priorities and avoiding redundancy. He co-chaired the Prescription Drug Task Force that reported directly to the Secretary of HHS and the White House, and was technical lead in designing the Congressionally mandated evaluation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Prior to his work at HHS, he was a Vice President at the Lewin Group consultancy and a Research Associate and Program Manager at the Urban Institute.