Professor Somkid awarded for outstanding scholarship

This year Chulalongkorn University Council bestowed the award of Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Economics upon Professor Somkid Kaewsonthi for her outstanding scholarship in the field of health economics and her contribution to the development of this speciality in the Faculty. Her work and initiatives have been highly recognized nationally and internationally.

Professor Somkid, who retired early, in 1995, devoted many years of her academic life to fostering the development of health economics as a special discipline, in addition to her interests in operations research and quantitative economics. Her initiatives in research and capacity building in health economics for the Faculty, with support from WHO, TDR, the British Council and other international agencies, have brought broad benefits to Thailand and to the Asian region as a whole. She developed a Thai MEcon in Health Economics programme. Then, after several years of hard work she launched the first international programme of the Faculty, the MSc in Health Economics programme in 1991.

We have great respect and admiration for her and her achievements, especially for her pioneering long-term vision regarding the evolution of the field of health economics even during a time when this field was unknown in Thailand. We owe so much of our present work to her initiative in founding the Centre for Health Economics which has become the WHO Collaborating Centre since 1993.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate her and to thank her deeply for her great contribution to the foundation and progress in health economics in the Faculty. We hope to maintain and further expand her initiatives in health economics for greater benefits to those whom we need to serve.