Christopher J. Gerry is the Rector, Dean of the Graduate School of Development (GSD), and Full Professor at the University of Central Asia (UCA). Professor Gerry is based in Bishkek in the UCA headquarters but travels regularly to UCA campuses and research offices in Naryn, Almaty, Tekeli, Dushanbe and Khorog. As Acting Rector and as Dean of the Graduate School, Professor Gerry is committed to UCA’s core objectives, of pursuing Sustainable Development for Central Asia through achieving excellence in research, education and capacity building – working across the environmental sciences, social sciences, humanities, applied sciences, the arts and computer science.
Prior to joining UCA, Professor Gerry was Head of Oxford University’s School of Global and Area Studies and Full Professor in Public Health and Health Economics of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. During his time at Oxford (2017-2022) he was also a Governing Body member of St Antony’s College, where he served as Dean for 4 years. Before this, he spent 15 years (2002-2017) at UCL in London, where he was appointed as Assistant Professor (2002) and then Associate Professor of Health Economics (2007) and held several significant leadership roles, while developing a distinguished portfolio of research. Professor Gerry took leave from UCL, from 2014-2017, to take up a position as Professor of Health Economics at HSE University in St. Petersburg, where he established a successful research laboratory in Health Economics and Policy and developed the University’s first Internationalisation Strategy.
Professor Gerry has accumulated a wealth of senior leadership experience during his career as well as being a distinguished academic researcher, teacher and scholar. His research, which has been predominantly applied research, has focused on the economics of health, welfare, inequality and labour markets in Eurasia, and he has published widely in many of the leading journals in Public Health, Health Economics and Area Studies. He has taught Development Economics, Health Economics, Transition Economics, Public Sector Economics, Econometrics and Macroeconomics. Professor Gerry has also won significant grants from the Open Society Foundations, the British Medical Council and the European Union. At UCA he is involved in projects linked to the Sustainable Development Goals and public health - when his management responsibilities permit.
