Pre-cronference speakers

The pre-conference speakers will be Eddy Van Doorslaer (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Séverine Toussaert (University of Oxford)

Eddy Van Doorslaer is a Professor of Health Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam, holding joint appointments at the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management and the Erasmus School of Economics. He has collaborated extensively with leading health economists and has made significant contributions to the study of health equity, healthcare financing, and socioeconomic inequalities in health, shaping global discussions on healthcare accessibility and affordability in both higher- and lower-income countries.

His seminal works focused on the study and measurement of inequalities in health. He has been at the forefront of developing and refining various methods to measure and explain socioeconomic-related inequalities in health and healthcare utilisation. In particular, he contributed to the application and popularisation of concentration indexes, by also exploring different approaches to decompose inequalities to understand their underlying causes. A significant part of his research focused on the financial burden of healthcare on households, particularly out-of-pocket payments, and assessing the extent to which health systems protect individuals from catastrophic health expenditures. This is especially relevant for understanding health equity in low- and middle-income countries. His research continues to impact long-term care policies, healthcare financing models, and the economic implications of health inequalities.  For the pre-conference session, Eddy will offer a behind-the-scenes look at his career, sharing an honest account of the setbacks, lessons and defining moments that rarely make it on a CV.

Séverine Toussaert is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, affiliated with St John's College. She holds Master's degrees from Sciences Po and Paris School of Economics, and a PhD in Economics from New York University. Her research spans multiple disciplines, primarily at the intersection of behavioral economics, experimental economics, and decision theory. Within health economics, she focuses on self-control and commitment strategies, investigating how individuals manage temptations and pursue long-term goals, with applications in areas like weight loss and smoking cessation. She has been involved in developing and evaluating gamified smartphone applications for smoking cessation, aiming to understand mechanisms that trigger and sustain behavior change, with an interest in the role of pride as a motivator.

Her research extends to metascience, the study of the science of science. As part of Lab², a metascience incubator, she focuses on understanding the trial-and-error process in research, identifying robust research paradigms, and advocating for a systematic approach to interpreting scientific results. For the pre-conference session, Séverine will reflect on the role of failure in academic life, offering insights from her research into how missteps and trial-and-error drive learning and scientific progress.