It has been nearly four decades since Shannon Brownlee was an ARCS Scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1979. But the ensuing years have done nothing to diminish her passion for her industry. In 2015 Brownlee was inducted into the ARCS Alumni Hall of Fame for scientific writing and advocacy that has improved public understanting of science and medicine and helped transform U.S. Healthcare. 

Currently serving as senior vice president of the Lown Institute in Boston, Brownlee was a lead author on a series of four papers published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, on poor medical care.

“We looked at the widespread prevalence of the delivery of unnecessary medical services and the failure to deliver needed services,” she said. The papers can be found here.

This is a topic that Brownlee has studied for years. In 2007 she was the author of a book entitled “Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.”  Her effort was named the best economics book of the year by the New York Times and the interest in this topic has only grown with the current opioid crisis facing many in the United States. It’s an effort that for Brownlee started all those years ago, when she recieved financial assistance while completing a master’s degree in marine science at UC-Santa Cruz.

"Thanks for the opportunity to share this information, and for the amazing opportunity I got as an ARCS scholar many years ago," Brownlee said.