For seven years Bob hosted an award-winning medical talk show broadcast weekly by 450 NPR, university, and community radio stations. His guests included Nobel laureates and other world leaders in biomedical science and clinical practice; Directors of NIH Institutes; Members of the U.S. Congress; Presidents of U.S. and European patient organizations; and Patients with major diagnoses & their family members.
During 1999-2000, he served as the first Director of Multimedia Programs at Medscape.com (now WebMD) and CBS Healthwatch.com, transforming each site's content from static text to multimedia programs. While at Medscape Bob became the first person in history to “webcast” (podcast) medical programs.
Bob's accomplishments in radio broadcasting and webcasting are based on 25 years of leadership in health research on acute and chronic disease, and disability. He served for 12 years as Director of Health Research & Policy Programs at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has also designed, conducted, or led studies for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Columbia University; Aventis Pharmaceticals; the National Institute of Mental Health; the U. S. Rehabilitation Services Administration; and other organizations.
The author of more than 60 journal articles, magazine articles, and book chapters, Bob also wrote Health Insurance, at the time the foremost book on the topic. The 2nd edition was selected as runner-up for The Wharton School's Kulp-Wright Award for "The Year’s Best Book in Personal Finance." In January, 2023 he completed a book entitled “Our Pandemic Future,” concerning the likelihood of future pandemics and what must be done to improve US and international infectious disease defenses.
Bob has served as a speaker, panel moderator, and workshop leader at numerous professional and consumer conferences in the US, Canada, Europe, and Africa, including meetings of The Brookings Institution; the National Health Council; The White House; the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers; as well as Yale, Columbia, Cornell, University of California – Berkeley, California State University, and the University of Minnesota.
Bob received his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University, with a special focus on sociology of knowledge, history of ideas, philosophy of science, and sociology of science. He also holds post-doctoral certificates in psychotherapy, organizational development & fund-raising; and clinical hypnosis. In 2022 he joined a U.C. Berkeley think tank, the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management as a “Researcher” specializing in pandemic preparedness. In 2023 he was appointed a voting member of the Advisory Committee, State of California, Department of Public Health, Healthcare-Associated Infections (HA-I) Program.
