He received a Ph.D. in American history at the University of California, Berkeley in May 2002, and he is the author of The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia , published in November 2008 by the University of Chicago Press. At the Miller Center, McKee heads the Great Issues program and has worked extensively with the Presidential Recordings Program. He is currently working on a book project that examines the rise of the health care economy in American cities after World War II, focusing on the development of hospitals and academic medical centers as critical but problematic urban economic anchors as well as drivers of cost in the larger health care system.