Villers Fellowship
About Philippe Villers
Philippe Villers is the co-founder of Families USA. In 1981, he and his wife founded the organization (initially called The Villers Foundation). He has served as its President and as a member of the Board of Directors since its inception. He is deeply committed to the organization’s mission of achieving universal access to high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
Mr. Villers also serves on the ACLU President’s Committee, on Amnesty International USA’s Executive Directors Council, and on the Boards of Mercy Corps, GrainPro, Inc., United Villages, and the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University. He was a founder of Computervision Corporation (a Fortune 500 company for many years), Automatix, Inc., and Cognition, Inc. and has been a guiding force in innovative and successful high-tech corporations for more than 25 years. Mr. Villers holds an AB with honors from Harvard and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from M.I.T.
Fellowship Description:
The Villers Fellow works as a full-time policy analyst in Families USA’s Health Policy Department. The Fellowship is based in the Families USA office in Washington, D.C. and is designed to provide the fellow with a national perspective on health care justice work. The program will afford the Fellow the opportunity to learn about a range of health care justice issues. The Villers Fellow’s principal responsibilities include conducting primary and secondary research on a range of health care issues, including Medicaid, Medicare, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), prescription drugs, and the private insurance market, as well as writing and contributing to publications that are relevant to current health policy debates. For more information on The Villers Fellowship for Health Care Justice, please see the Families USA Web site at: http://www.familiesusa.org/villers.
The fellowship will last one year, from August 2009 through July 2010, and Fellows will receive a compensatory package that includes an annual salary of approximately $35,000 and excellent health care benefits. One Villers Fellow is selected each year.
Qualifications and Procedures:
Candidates applying for the Villers Fellowship must demonstrate a commitment to social and health care justice advocacy following their year of hands-on experience as a fellow. In addition, in order to further the development of future leaders, Villers Fellows must commit to mentoring at least one person at some point over the course of their careers. There is no minimum GPA to qualify for consideration.
Please follow the application directions carefully.
Candidates must submit the following:
A completed application form
A personal essay
A résumé
Candidates must have both of the following sent by others:
An official copy of her or his most recent college or graduate school transcript (not required for applicants who have not been enrolled in a degree program after January 2006) sent directly from the school’s registrar’s office. No annotated transcripts, please.
Three letters of recommendation from academic and/or professional references and/or references who can attest to the applicant’s community involvement, sent directly from the references themselves. Letters can be e-mailed if the letter is an attached pdf of a signed original letter sent from the reference’s professional e-mail account.
All application materials can be sent by mail to:
Families USA
Villers Fellowship
1201 New York Avenue NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
or e-mail to: villersfellowship@familiesusa.org.
All materials must be postmarked on or received by January 15, 2009. Application materials that are postmarked after that date will not be considered.
Letters of recommendation or transcripts sent by the applicant or in an improper format will not be accepted.
Finalists for the position will be contacted for an interview. The final decision will be made some time in April 2009. If selected as a finalist, the applicant’s references will be contacted.
Posted: 09/29/08
