Appointed by the Senate on November 19, 2009 (first term); Reappointed October 5, 2015 (Second term).
Dr. Jagadeesh Gokhale is the Director of Special Projects at Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative (Penn Wharton PPI). Prior to joining PPI, Dr. Gokhale was a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Earlier he worked at the American Enterprise Institute as a visiting scholar (2003), the U.S. Treasury Department as a consultant (2002), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland as a senior economic advisor (1990-2003). An economist by training, his main research fields are macro and public economics with a special focus on the effects of fiscal policy on future generations. In 2008, he served as a member of the Task Force on Sustainability Issues for the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board. Dr. Gokhale has written extensively on policy issues including Social Security and Medicare reform, national saving, private insurance, financial planning, wealth inequality, generational accounting, and public intergenerational transfers and he has testified several times before Congress on these topics. He has published several papers in the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics and in publications of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Cleveland Federal Reserve; in the US Budget report’s Analytical Perspectives; and in newspapers and online media such as the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, the Washington Post, American Spectator, and Forbes. Dr. Gokhale is a co-author of Fiscal and Generational Imbalances that revealed the US fiscal imbalance to be in the tens of trillions of dollars. In 2010 he published Social Security: A Fresh Look at Policy Alternatives which constructs a different method for determining solvency of the Social Security trust funds. First term of office: November 2009 to September 2015. Current term of office: October 2015 to September 2021.
Robert Joondeph (10/18-09/24)
Appointed by the Senate on October 1, 2018.
Bob Joondeph, J.D. served as the Executive Director of Disability Rights Oregon (DRO) for over 30 years. DRO is the Protection and Advocacy office for Oregon, promoting and defending the legal and civil rights of Oregonians with disabilities through legal-based advocacy. Mr. Joondeph came to Oregon as a VISTA volunteer attorney in 1976. Throughout his career, Mr. Joondeph has represented individuals with disabilities in state and federal courts, agencies and legislatures. He has served as a member of numerous state policy groups in Oregon including the Health Evidence Review Commission, Health Services Commission, Health Fund Board, Mental Health Planning and Management Advisory Council, State Rehabilitation Commission, Governor’s Task Force on Brain Injury and the Council on Developmental Disabilities. He is the recipient of the Oregon State Bar Public Service Award, Oregon Disabilities Commission Advocate of the Year Award, Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon Advocacy Award, and the Oregon Civil Rights Leadership Award. Mr. Joondeph is a graduate of Case Western Reserve Law School and Brown University. Current term of office: October 2018 to September 2024.