A $3.5 million gift from Alan S. Davis, JD, and the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund will enable the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) to expand its Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research (SUMR) Program and also support LDI initiatives aimed at increasing population access to health insurance and health care.

The gift is the largest ever received by LDI, the hub of the University of Pennsylvania’s health services research community, and an entity whose 1967 launch was funded by the late Leonard Davis—Alan S. Davis’ father.

“The Davis family’s extraordinary generosity underscores their commitment to expanding access to health insurance and to health care services,” said Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD, Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. “This gift not only broadens the reach of SUMR but ensures that our students have the resources and mentorship needed to drive impactful change in health care delivery and policy.”

$1 Million Matching Challenge

The gift establishes a Davis Family SUMR Program Endowment Fund and creates a $1 million matching challenge that has the potential to add $2 million more to the overall donation.

The gift, which was secured through a close collaboration between Davis and Werner, will be transformative for both LDI and SUMR. “Securing the financial future of programs at LDI like SUMR is crucial to our ongoing success and impact,” said Werner. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to build out LDI’s capacity to make important contributions related to expanding access to health insurance and to health care. With this, we can have a meaningful impact on addressing health care disparities that stem from unequal access to insurance.”

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to support students who want to pursue the important work of building evidence around the most effective ways to expand coverage and improve access,” said David Grande, MD, MPA, LDI Director of Policy and Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School. “We’ve made important progress as a nation in these goals but there is hard work ahead in closing gaps and making gains in health outcomes.”

The gift has several goals. First, it allows LDI to increase the stipends of all SUMR scholars. It also funds five SUMR scholars who will focus on expanding health care access and provides the opportunity to expand the 12-week SUMR Program to 15 months for select students, with extended mentorship and training opportunities. Third, the gift will go toward new initiatives at LDI to support research, mentorship, and dissemination of work focused on increasing health care and insurance access.

San Francisco Philanthropist

A San Francisco-based philanthropist, Alan S. Davis is the President and CEO of the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund and Director of the Fund’s WhyNot Initiative that focuses on advocating for racial equity, safeguarding voting rights, and raising awareness of wealth inequality.

“The Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund has a long history of supporting initiatives that create meaningful change,” said Davis. “This gift builds on our family’s legacy by empowering diverse voices in the health care field and expanding access to care for underserved populations. The goal is twofold: I hope this matching gift will inspire others to join in supporting this important work and help expand LDI’s impact.”

The Davis family’s connections to Penn and LDI stretch back to the 1960s when Leonard Davis was the founder of the Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company, and the new federal Medicare and Medicaid programs had just been enacted. He recognized the lack of academic research facilities capable of producing evidence to support the insurance industry during this time of significant disruption in the national health care market. In collaboration with Penn’s Wharton School, the elder Davis funded the creation of the academic institute that now bears his name and was the first university center of its kind designed to foster multidisciplinary research in the business side of medical care.

LDI and Wharton Collaboration

In a 2000 collaboration, LDI and Wharton’s Health Care Management Department launched the SUMR Program, which was the brainchild of Wharton Professor Mark Pauly, PhD, and Joanne Levy, MBA, MPC. The initiative was an effort to create a program that introduced a more diverse group of undergraduates to the world of health services research, channeling them toward advanced degree programs in health care.

“When you look back on the last 25 years, it’s sometimes hard to believe how far the SUMR program has come,” said Levy, who has been Director of the program since its inception. “I’m enormously grateful to the Davis family for this generous gift and equally excited about what it means to the students in the years to come.”

The 3-month long SUMR Program includes an intense classroom curriculum taught by Penn faculty members and LDI Senior Fellows, who are among the top experts in their fields. Each SUMR scholar is also taken under the wing by a faculty mentor and directly involved in health services research projects for the duration of the summer. More than three dozen Penn faculty members and lab staffers volunteer to be SUMR mentors each year.

13 Years a Mentor

One of those mentors is Scott Halpern, MD, PhD, a Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine: “My team and I have been privileged to work with SUMR students for each of the past 13 years and it’s been among the most rewarding experiences of my career. I often think we learn as much from them as they hopefully do from us, and it’s been incredible watching so many blossom into medical and graduate students and in many cases, now faculty. This generous gift could not have gone to a better cause—the program is a win-win-win for the students, sponsoring faculty, and ultimately society as a whole.”

Another long-time mentor is Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBE, an Associate Professor of both Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School and Law at the Penn Carey Law School. She’s also a former SUMR scholar herself from the program’s early years:

“As someone who has benefited tremendously from the SUMR Program, first as a student and later as a mentor, I can attest to the value of efforts to lift the veil on what an academic research career might look like for students who might not otherwise see themselves in these roles. The SUMR Program is a model for what it means to be inclusive, not only providing students with tremendous opportunities but also giving them the tools they need to succeed, from networks to writing skills to test prep and more. I’m thrilled to learn of this gift, which will provide financial stability to an incredible program.”

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