Christopher J. L. Murray (born August 16, 1962) is an American physician and economist serving as Professor and Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a public health research institute best known for publishing the Global Burden of Disease Study. Prior to joining the University of Washington, Murray was the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Murray also served as Executive Director of the Evidence and Information for Policy Cluster at the World Health Organization, where he served under Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Alongside collaborators such as Alan Lopez and Julio Frenk, Murray is best known for creating the Global Burden of Disease Study, an international effort to catalog the causes of death and disability worldwide. Beginning with the 1993 World Development Report, Murray and his collaborators published several iterations of the Global Burden, culminating in a December 2012 edition of The Lancet featuring only research and commentary from Murray and his collaborators.
