Charles Kaye-Essien

EXPERTISE

Regulatory Intelligence & Strategy · Health Technology Governance ·  Education Policy · Water & Environmental Sustainability ·  Collaborative Governance · Equity in Regulated Systems

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Charles Kaye-Essien is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law. An international scholar and consultant broadly trained at the intersection of institutions, policy, and distributive equity, he brings a comparative and governance-centered perspective to some of the most consequential regulatory and policy challenges of our time — from health technology access to education systems, water governance, and environmental sustainability.

His research spans two interrelated programs. The first examines the regulatory architecture that governs how health innovations reach the people who need them — and where that architecture fails. This work documents the structural gap between FDA device authorization and Medicare coverage decisions, producing empirical findings with direct implications for health policy reform and market access strategy. His forthcoming work in Health Affairs Scholar investigates the Medicare coverage gap for high-risk medical devices and critically evaluates the RAPID program’s promise as a coverage reform mechanism. Alongside this, he is developing a consultancy practice in regulatory intelligence and strategy, advising biotech, pharma, and medical device companies on FDA regulatory pathways and CMS coverage landscape navigation.

His second research program addresses education governance, water policy, and environmental sustainability, applying the same institutional governance framework across these domains: when do regulatory architectures and governance arrangements produce the outcomes they were designed for, and when do structural gaps and fragmentation undermine them? His water governance research, recently published in Public Management Review, examines justice in co-planning across contrasting institutional contexts. His education research, published in Governance, investigates the complementary effects of intergovernmental support, NGO presence, and international development assistance on basic education outcomes in the Global South.

Dr. Kaye-Essien is currently an Associate Professor at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law,, where he teaches Foundations of Public Administration, Governance & Public Policy, Nonprofit Management, and supervises policy capstone projects on some of California’s most pressing challenges — including the LA wildfire housing crisis, the California home insurance market, and fentanyl policy. He previously served as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut and as Assistant Professor and MPA Program Director at the American University in Cairo, where he led a comprehensive revision of the MPA curriculum and connected students with internship opportunities at UNICEF, the Arab League, and the African Development Bank.

His research has been published in a range of high-impact journals including Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, Governance, Public Administration and Development, International Public Management Journal, and the International Development Planning Review. He currently serves as a peer reviewer for Nature, Public Management Review, Administration & Society, Feminist Media Studies, International Journal of Public Administration, and State and Local Government.

Dr. Kaye-Essien is a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow and a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) Scholar. He has served as a consultant to UNICEF, Development Pathways (UK), and the Swedish International Center for Local Democracy, and has held academic appointments in the United States, Egypt, Germany, and South Africa.