Assistant Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
Fellow, Center for Health Administration Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Global Health
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Latin American Studies
The University of Chicago
Alan Zarychta’s research focuses on the politics of social services in Central and South America, especially in the areas of public health and environmental policy. Most broadly, he investigates the sources and effects of institutional reforms aiming to improve local service delivery—how public sector reforms are targeted, the contextual conditions that shape their effectiveness, and whether such reforms can fundamentally alter local governance systems.
Zarychta is currently part of an interdisciplinary team working in collaboration with the Honduran Ministry of Health to study the effects of decentralized governance on the performance of local health systems in that country. He is also beginning related projects on health sector reform in Guatemala and Nicaragua. This work has benefited from the generous support of the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.
Prior to joining Crown Family School, he supported numerous US federal government agencies on issues of environmental policy while employed by IEc and was Director of Health Information Systems for the non-governmental organization Hombro a Hombro in Honduras. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Colorado Boulder. He also holds a MA in Public Policy from the University of Colorado Boulder and a BS in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University.