Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Avik Roy, President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (Part One)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Avik Roy, President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (Part One)
Avik Roy is the President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP).
Avik was born to Indian immigrants in Rochester, Michigan, a place that instilled in him a lifelong fondness for the Michigan Wolverines and the Detroit Red Wings. He finished high school in San Antonio, Texas, where USA Today named him to its All-USA High School Academic First Team, honoring the top 20 seniors in the country.
After training as a scientist at MIT and as a physician at Yale Medical School, Avik moved to Boston to join a then-unknown investment firm called Bain Capital, where he focused on identifying biotechnology companies developing therapies for diseases that had heretofore gone untreated.
In 2009, as President Obama’s health reform bill was being debated in Congress, Avik started a blog about health care policy. “I couldn’t find anything to read that I agreed with, so I started writing it myself.” Avik’s blog, The Apothecary, was soon picked up by Reihan Salam at National Review, and Matt Herper at Forbes. In 2012, Avik joined Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign as a health care policy advisor. By 2014, Avik was Forbes’ Opinion Editor, and Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd was calling Avik “the go-to policy wonk critic of the health care law…the guru.”
In 2015, Avik moved to Austin, where he ran the foreign and domestic policy shops for Texas Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. In that capacity, Avik was also the lead author of Gov. Perry’s major policy speeches. The Wall Street Journal called Perry’s address on intergenerational black poverty “the speech of the campaign so far.” Later in the primaries, Avik advised Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
Avik has been a central figure in the debate over how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan he developed with his FREOPP colleagues for reopening the U.S. economy while COVID-19 endures changed the debate about whether partial reopenings were possible in the spring and summer of 2020. A second plan, focused on safely reopening schools and colleges, shaped policies around the country in the fall of that year. “A source close to the White House said officials were closely watching his recommendations for addressing the coronavirus pandemic,” noted Business Insider in 2020.
View all episodes
By George Seay
4.9
2828 ratings
Avik Roy is the President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP).
Avik was born to Indian immigrants in Rochester, Michigan, a place that instilled in him a lifelong fondness for the Michigan Wolverines and the Detroit Red Wings. He finished high school in San Antonio, Texas, where USA Today named him to its All-USA High School Academic First Team, honoring the top 20 seniors in the country.
After training as a scientist at MIT and as a physician at Yale Medical School, Avik moved to Boston to join a then-unknown investment firm called Bain Capital, where he focused on identifying biotechnology companies developing therapies for diseases that had heretofore gone untreated.
In 2009, as President Obama’s health reform bill was being debated in Congress, Avik started a blog about health care policy. “I couldn’t find anything to read that I agreed with, so I started writing it myself.” Avik’s blog, The Apothecary, was soon picked up by Reihan Salam at National Review, and Matt Herper at Forbes. In 2012, Avik joined Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign as a health care policy advisor. By 2014, Avik was Forbes’ Opinion Editor, and Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd was calling Avik “the go-to policy wonk critic of the health care law…the guru.”
In 2015, Avik moved to Austin, where he ran the foreign and domestic policy shops for Texas Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. In that capacity, Avik was also the lead author of Gov. Perry’s major policy speeches. The Wall Street Journal called Perry’s address on intergenerational black poverty “the speech of the campaign so far.” Later in the primaries, Avik advised Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
Avik has been a central figure in the debate over how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan he developed with his FREOPP colleagues for reopening the U.S. economy while COVID-19 endures changed the debate about whether partial reopenings were possible in the spring and summer of 2020. A second plan, focused on safely reopening schools and colleges, shaped policies around the country in the fall of that year. “A source close to the White House said officials were closely watching his recommendations for addressing the coronavirus pandemic,” noted Business Insider in 2020.