Dr. Gopi Shah Goda is the Director of the Retirement Security Project, the inaugural Alice M. Rivlin Chair in Economic Policy, and Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.  She is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries.  Dr. Goda served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers from July 2021 to July 2022, and was on California Governor Gavin Newsom's Council of Economic Advisors from January to August 2024.  

Dr. Goda conducts research that informs how policy can best serve aging societies, including how individuals make healthcare, saving and retirement decisions as they age and the sustainability of public programs serving older populations.  Her current scholarship examines the implications of subsidizing medical spending through the tax code and how long-term care is financed in the U.S. and other countries.  Her work has appeared in a variety of leading economics journals and has been supported by the Social Security Administration, the National Institutes on Aging, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the TIAA Institute.

Dr. Goda is passionate about bridging the gap between research and practice to ensure that scholarship leads to evidence-based solutions.  Her work has garnered coverage in major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, the Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle.  It has also frequently been cited in policy discourse, including government reports, agency rulemaking and legislative bodies.  She is a founding member of Briefing Book, a collaboration among economists with research and policy experience that aims to help its readers develop informed views about economic policy issues.  

Prior to joining Brookings, Dr. Goda was a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), serving a term as Deputy Director, and Professor of Economics and Health Policy (by courtesy) at Stanford University.  For 15 years, she taught undergraduates to interpret and critically evaluate research findings, understand their policy implications, perform empirical analysis and communicate economic ideas clearly and effectively.  Dr. Goda earned her BS in mathematics and actuarial science from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, obtained a PhD in economics from Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard University.