By Daily Press staff
The local school board has new leadership. José Escarce has been elected president, and Emily Bloomfield vice president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education. Their one-year terms began Dec. 4.
Dr. Escarce, serving for the first time as president, succeeds Maria Leon-Vazquez, while Bloomfield fills the spot previously held by Escarce.
Dr. Escarce, M.D., Ph.D., was elected to the board in November, 2000. Currently, he is professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior natural scientist at RAND Corp. Dr. Escarce graduated from Princeton University, earned a master’s degree in physics from Harvard University, obtained his medical degree and doctorate in health economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his residency at Stanford University. Dr. Escarce has served on the National Advisory Council for Health Care Policy, Research, and Evaluation of the Department of Health and Human Services, and currently serves on the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Minority Medical Faculty Development Program. He is past chairman of the Health Economics Committee of the American Public Health Association. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care and is currently a member of the National Research Council Panel on DHHS Collection of Data on Race and Ethnicity. Dr. Escarce’s research interests include provider and patient behavior under economic incentives, access to care, racial and ethnic disparities in care, and the impact of managed care on cost and quality.
Bloomfield, was elected to the board in November, 2002. An economist, Bloomfield has a B.A., M.P.A and M.Phil in economics. Prior to being elected to the board, she was a member of the district’s strategic planning design team, PTA and school site governance council. Bloomfield is the parent of three children currently in the district.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 6, 2003. Read the original PDF.