CHERISH Research Affiliates are investigators with a diverse methodological expertise in economic evaluation of substance use disorder treatments and experts in related fields such as simulation modeling, advanced statistical analysis of substance use natural history and treatment outcomes, treatment program organizational research, and clinical program evaluation. The Research Affiliates program aims to establish a community for health economic researchers in the substance use disorder field to interact throughout the year, virtually and in-person.
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Lindsay Allen, PhD, MA
Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern Universityhealth care access, substance use disorders, health services research
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Lindsay Allen, PhD, MA
Lindsay Allen, PhD, MA is an assistant professor of health economics and health policy in the Health Policy, Management, and Leadership Department in West Virginia University’s School of Public Health. Much of her work emphasizes improving health care access and outcomes for vulnerable populations. She is the co-Principal Investigator for West Virginia’s Medicaid 1115 Substance Use Disorder Waiver Evaluation. Dr. Allen is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and Emory University. Prior to her graduate work, she worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and was a senior health care technology analyst for the ECRI Institute.
Sabrina Assoumou, MD, MPH
Boston University School of MedicineHCV, HIV, substance use disorder
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Sabrina Assoumou, MD, MPH
Sabrina A. Assoumou, MD MPH, is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the section of Infectious Diseases at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM)/Boston Medical Center (BMC). She is a clinician-investigator who cares for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients at the BUSM/BMC’s Centers for Infectious Diseases. Her research focuses on medical complications of substance use including HIV and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) using comparative and cost-effectiveness analyses. She is also interested in models of care and on improving the continuum of care for individuals with HIV and/or HCV.
Marcus Bachhuber, MD, MS
Louisiana Medicaidopioid use disorder, addiction health services research, health policy
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Marcus Bachhuber, MD, MS
Dr. Marcus Bachhuber completed his medical degree at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania followed by residency and chief residency at the Montefiore Einstein Primary Care/Social Internal Medicine Residency Program. He completed a fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania where he also obtained a Masters of Science in Health Policy Research. In addition to being a primary care provider, Dr. Bachhuber conducts research focusing on health system and policy approaches to reduce harms from opioids.
Joshua Barocas, MD
University of Colorado School of Medicinesubstance use disorder, simulation modeling, epidemiology
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Joshua Barocas, MD
Joshua Barocas, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston Medical Center in the Section of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Barocas’ research focuses on the comparative- and cost-effectiveness of interventions to identify and treat the infectious complications of drug use using simulation modeling and clinical epidemiology. Dr. Barocas earned a BA from Washington University in St. Louis (2003), an MD from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Public Health (2010), and completed a residency and Chief Residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin (2010-2014) before moving to Boston for his infectious diseases fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (2015-2017).
Colleen Barry, PhD, MPP
Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policyhealth policy, political analysis, mental illness
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Colleen Barry, PhD, MPP
Colleen L. Barry, a nationally and internationally recognized research scholar, educator and leader in the areas of mental health and addiction policy and policy communication, is the inaugural dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
She formerly was the Fred and Julie Soper Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Professor Barry’s research focuses on how health and social policies can affect a range of outcomes for individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders, including access to medical care and social services, care quality, health care spending, financial protection and mortality. She is involved in numerous research studies examining the implications of health insurance expansions and health care delivery system reform efforts on the treatment of mental illness and substance use disorders. She also conducts empirical research to understand how communication strategies influence public attitudes about addiction, mental illness and violence. One focus of this work is to identify evidence-based approaches to reducing stigma. She has authored over 160 peer-reviewed articles on these topics. Dr. Barry is founding co-Director (with Elizabeth Stuart) of the Johns Hopkins Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy Research and is a core faculty member in the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. She is Principal Investigator of the Johns Hopkins NIMH T32 Mental Health Services and Systems Training Grant providing pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships to train scholars who will become leaders in the mental health services and systems research field. Professor Barry received her Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University and her masters degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Tyler Bartholomew
University of Miami Miller School of Medicineprevention science, harm reduction
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Tyler Bartholomew
He is currently a research assistant in the Biobehavioral Statistics Group, run by Dr. Daniel Feaster, and University of Miami’s Harm Reduction Group, run by Dr. Hansel Tookes, where he provides statistical support to the IDEA Exchange, Florida’s first and only legal syringe services program. Through this co-mentorship, Mr. Bartholomew has obtained four grants as PI/Co-PI to assess implementation of the IDEA SSP, including two Ending the HIV Epidemic grants to examine implementation of HIV Telemedicine, mobile PrEP services, and medication-assisted treatment (MAT) at the IDEA SSP. Mr. Bartholomew has also served as the student legislative lead for Dr. Tookes in the advocacy of IDEA 2019, a bill passed in 2019 that allows all Florida counties to implement syringe service programs.
Brittany Bass, PhD
UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programseconomic evaluation, policy analysis, substance use disorders
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Brittany Bass, PhD
Brittany Bass, PhD, is a Project Economist in the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at UCLA. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Sacramento State University. Her primary research interest is in health economics, with an emphasis on substance abuse disorders. Dr. Bass’s current research includes economic evaluations of California’s Hub and Spoke System and California’s Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System waiver project. Dr. Bass is a graduate of the University of California-Irvine (PhD, Economics), San Diego State University (MA, Economics), and the University of North Carolina-Wilmington (BS, Business Administration).
Ahmed M. Bayoumi, MD, MSc
St. Michael's Hospital; University of Torontoeconomic evaluation, decision analysis, quality of life
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Ahmed M. Bayoumi, MD, MSc
Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi is a Scientist at the Centre for Urban Health Solutions at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, a general internist and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) physician at St. Michael’s Hospital. He holds the Fondation Baxter & Alma Ricard Chair in Inner City Health at St. Michael’s and the University of Toronto. He is a Professor in the Department of Medicine and in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
His research interests include economic evaluation, decision analysis, and quality of life assessment for HIV-related health interventions, and studies of the access to the delivery of health services, particularly to people living with HIV, injection drug users, and other marginalized populations. His work has included cost-effectiveness analyses of screening strategies for HIV, drug treatments for HIV and related conditions, and supervised injection sites for injection drug users. He also studies how to incorporate equity concerns into resource allocation decisions in a manner that is defensible, transparent, and principled. He is a Senior Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. He is past President of the Society for Medical Decision Making and is a member of the Canadian Drug Expert Committee. He is a past Director of Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
Czarina Behrends, PhD, MPH
Weill Cornell Medicineopioid use disorder, harm reduction, economic evaluations
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Czarina Behrends, PhD, MPH
Research interests include harm reduction, opioid overdose prevention, and HIV and HCV among people who use drugs. My background includes epidemiology (trained in this field), public health practice in health policy, harm reduction, HIV surveillance data management/analysis, qualitative research, and health services research. I also have a strong foundation in teaching and mentoring students in public health.
Annick Borquez, PhD
University of California San DiegoSUD, HCV, HIV, cost-effectiveness analysis,
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Annick Borquez, PhD
Dr. Bórquez is an Assistant Professor at the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California San Diego. Her research seeks to improve the health of marginalized populations through developing, applying and integrating mathematical modeling, cost effectiveness and qualitative methods to better understand, predict and respond to intersecting epidemics of substance use disorders, overdose, HIV, HCV and other associated health harms; with a focus on social and structural determinants of health. She is the principal investigator of a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Avenir year grant to adapt emerging infectious diseases methods including mathematical modeling, to the field of drug use to better understand, predict and respond to emerging substance use epidemics and associated harms in the United States. She has a background in medical microbiology from the University of Edinburgh and holds an MSc. and a PhD. in epidemiology from the department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London.
Diana Bowser, ScD, MPH
Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Managementhealth financing, health economics, health systems
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Diana Bowser, ScD, MPH
Diana Bowser has 15 years of experience in health system analysis related to health economics, health policy, and using econometric methods to evaluate health system changes in Latin America, Africa, and the United States. She is especially interested in health system issues and research related to health financing, poverty, catastrophic health payments, implementation, evaluation, income inequality, quality improvement, human resources for health, decentralization, and resource allocation in the health sector, and health and economic growth. She has provided technical assistance and conducted research with grants and funding from USAID, DFID, WHO, the Global Fund, Save the Children, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IADB and the World Bank. She has worked closely with the following governments on these policy issues: Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, Swaziland, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Ukraine, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Egypt, Oman and Kuwait. Dr. Bowser earned her BA from the Harvard College, her MPH from Yale School of Public Health and her Doctor of Science in health economics from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is fluent in Spanish and has lived in Latin America.
Jeremy Bray, PhD, MA
University of North Carolina at Greensboroeconomic evaluations, behavioral health interventions
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Jeremy Bray, PhD, MA
Jeremy Bray is Professor and Head of the Department of Economics in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His research focuses on two primary areas of interest: the economics of substance abuse and the economic evaluation of behavioral health interventions. In his work on the economics of substance abuse, Dr. Bray has examined the labor market effects of substance use, abuse, and dependence and has studied the role of prices and taxes in consumers’ choices regarding alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. In his research on the cost-effectiveness of behavioral health interventions, Dr. Bray has estimated the costs and effectiveness of employee assistance program (EAP) services, screening and brief intervention (SBI) programs, behavioral and pharmacological therapies for alcohol dependence, and workplace prevention, early intervention, and wellness programs.
Dr. Bray was the project director of the national, cross-site evaluation of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment’s (CSAT) Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) grant program. He was Principal Investigator of the Data and Methodological Coordinating Center for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Work, Family, and Health Network. Dr. Bray is the Economics Field Editor for the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs and is an assistant editor for Addiction. He has published his research findings in peer-reviewed journals across a range of disciplines (citations = 2936, h-index = 25), including Addiction, Health Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Medical Care, and Public Health Reports, among others.
Jennifer Brown, PhD
University of Cincinnati College of MedicineHIV/HCV prevention, substance use disorders, integrated data analysis
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Jennifer Brown, PhD
Dr. Brown’s research focuses on the intersection of substance use, Hepatitis C, and HIV. For example, she was the PI of a NIDA funded R03 grant to examine the effectiveness of substance use treatments to reduce HIV risk behaviors using an integrated data analysis approach. Dr. Brown is interested in the development and evaluation of interventions to prevent HIV/AIDS and promote psychosocial adaptation, particularly among individuals with substance use disorders. Her research also aims to reduce health disparities and improve the reproductive health of adolescents. For example, she is the PI on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded grant to examine the contraceptive practices and HIV prevention approaches of South African adolescents.
Susan Busch, PhD
Yale School of Public Healthmental health policy, health services research
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Susan Busch, PhD
Professor Busch is a Professor of Public Health (Health Policy) and former chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health. Professor Busch’s research examines the effects of policies and regulations on health care cost and quality. Most of her work focuses on behavioral health. Professor Busch’s work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, an SM in Health Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health and a PhD in health economics from Harvard University.
Kevin Callison, PhD
Tulane University School of Public Health & Tropical Medicinepolicy analysis, substance abuse, health insurance
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Kevin Callison, PhD
Kevin Callison is an assistant professor of health management and policy in the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Callison received his his PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His current research focuses on health policy evaluation, health insurance, and issues related to substance abuse.
Mathieu Castry
Mathieu Castry is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Boston University School of Medicine.
Robin Clark, PhD, MA
University of Massachusetts Medical Schooleconomic evaluation, behavioral health, cost
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Robin Clark, PhD, MA
Robin Clark is a Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Community Health and Quantitative Health Sciences. He specializes in the economic evaluation of health care policies and interventions, with a special focus on substance use disorders, mental health and primary care. His work has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Mental Health, HRSA, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts and by health and human services agencies in several states.His current work focuses on the impact of homelessness on the health and healthcare utilization of mothers and infants, implementation of treatment for individuals with addiction in real world settings, and the impact of Medicaid policies on accessibility, effectiveness and cost of treatment for opioid addiction. Dr. Clark also studies policies and practices that support individuals with persistently high health care costs and multiple chronic conditions.
Alexander Cowell, PhD
RTI Internationaleconomic evaluations, behavioral health, criminal justice
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Alexander Cowell, PhD
Dr. Cowell is the head of provider led analytics at Carolina Complete Health, Inc., a start-up company allied to one of North Carolina’s Medicaid managed care organizations that aims to improve beneficiaries’ health. Previously, served as a senior research economist at RTI International with expertise in the areas of mental health and substance abuse. He currently leads directs the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) cross-site evaluation of the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment program, and serves as the principle investigator on an Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project researching access to and continuity of behavioral health care in Medicaid and the exchanges for those who transition between these sources of coverage. Dr. Cowell has led an assessment of the impact of the ACA on behavioral heatlh coverage in private plans and the behavioral health component of an assessment of the impact of the ACA Medicaid expansion. Dr. Cowell is a recognized expert in Screening and Brief Intervention for harmful alcohol/drug use (SBI) and has considerable experience leading economic evaluations in the areas of mental illness, substance abuse, and criminal and juvenile justice, leading a number of such projects with funders including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and SAMHSA.
Before joining RTI International, Dr. Cowell was a Visiting Research Scholar and Research Assistant in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he earned his doctorate in Economics.
Thomas D’Aunno, PhD
NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; NYU College of Global Public Healthevidence-based management, health management
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Thomas D’Aunno, PhD
Thomas D’Aunno is Professor of Management at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Professor of Public Health at the NYU College of Global Public Health. D’Aunno’s research and teaching focus on the organization and management of healthcare services: he has a particular interest in the diffusion and adoption of evidence-based practices and leadership and organizational change. He has examined these issues in a variety of national studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Health Care Quality and Research. He is currently leadina study of the organization and performance of Accountable Care Organizations.
D’Aunno was previously a faculty member at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and INSEAD, where he held the Novartis Chair in Healthcare Management. He is published in leading management and health journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. In 2014, he became the Editor-in-Chief of Medical Care Research and Review. He also is a past chairman of the Academy of Management Division of Health Care Management and a recipient of their award for career distinguished service.
D’Aunno graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame and received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Michael L. Dennis, PhD
Chestnut Health Systemsrecovery management, adolescents, recovery support
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Michael L. Dennis, PhD
I received my Ph.D. in Psychology in 1988 from Northwestern University under a NIH fellowship to train more methodologists on how to do and improve the quality of behavioral health field research. Currently, I am a Senior Research Psychologist in Chestnut Health Systems’ Bloomington-Normal research office, Director of Chestnut’s GAIN Coordinating Center (GCC), and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Scientifically, I am currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Smartphone Addiction Recovery Coach for Adolescents (SARC-A) experiment (DA011323) and the cross-site evaluation of Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Guidelines (2014-DC-BX-K001); Coordinating Center Multi-PI for the Juvenile Justice Translational Research for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) cooperative agreement (1U01 DA036221); and co-investigator on Dr. Christy Scott’s Recovery Initiation and Management after Overdose (RIMO) Experiment (DA045774), Recovery Management Checkups for Primary Care (RMCPC) experiment (R01 AA024440), and Smartphones Recovery Support Services (SRSS) experiment (DA035879).
Monica Deza, PhD
Hunter Collegeeconomic and policy evaluation, labor economics
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Monica Deza, PhD
Monica Deza is an Assistant Professor of Economics at City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter College. Her research interests include Economics of crime, Economics of Risky Health Behaviors, Applied Microeconometrics and Labor Economics. A common theme in her work is how various policies affect adolescent propensity to engage in crime and drug consumption. Her recent research examines the effectiveness of graduated driver licensing laws on adolescent criminal participation as well as the effect of local labor market conditions on crime. Dr. Deza has published in the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Health Economics. Dr. Deza received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California Berkeley in 2012 and a B.A in Economics and Applied Mathematics from the University of California in Berkeley in 2006. She is an NBER/NSF Crime Research Fellow, and previously worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. During Summer 2016, Dr. Deza was a Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley
Eva Enns, PhD
University of Minnesotacost-effectiveness analysis, infectious disease modeling, network analysis
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Eva Enns, PhD
Eva Enns is, PhD, an Assistant Professor, Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. Dr. Enns has PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Her research focuses on the development of mathematical models of the spread of infectious diseases that help evaluate strategies aimed at mitigating disease impact through prevention and/or treatment. Dr. Enns aims to inform better infectious disease prevention, management, and control policies as well as to develop new methodologies or tools to better address issues surrounding infectious disease outbreaks.
Rachel Epstein, MD, MSc
Boston University School of MedicineHIV, HCV, EHR-based studies
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Rachel Epstein, MD, MSc
Rachel Epstein, MD, MSc, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics in the sections of Infectious Diseases and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Boston University School of Medicine/Boston Medical Center. She sees adult and pediatric patients living with or at risk for hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and other infectious diseases. Her research focuses on analyzing large data sets and utlitizing decision modelling to identify ways to improve care delivery along the HCV, HIV, and opioid use disorder care continuums, with particular expertise on pregnant and post-partum women with substance use, their exposed infants, and adolescents. Her current and recent work includes projects analyzing the effects of Medicaid HCV treatment restrictions on care cascade outcome achievement, HIV prevention and medication adherence, and comparing the cost-effectiveness of various HCV screening, evaluation, and treatment interventions.
Daniel J. Feaster, PhD, MS
University of Miami Miller School of MedicineHIV, substance use disorders, health disparities
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Daniel J. Feaster, PhD, MS
Daniel J. Feaster, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor within the Biostatistics Division of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University Of Miami Miller School Of Medicine. He has over 25 years experience in design, implementation and analysis of large longitudinal studies, including clinical trials of HIV-positive and drug abusing populations as well as both individual and family-focused preventive and treatment interventions. He has been the statistician on numerous federally funded projects, including center grants, RO1s, cooperative agreements and multi-site trials. Dr. Feaster has expertise in multi-level (also known as hierarchical linear) modeling, structural equation modeling and extensive experience with longitudinal analysis and methods for handling missing data.
Michael T. French, PhD, MA
University of Miamihealth economics, health policy, program evaluation, alternative health care delivery systems
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Michael T. French, PhD, MA
Dr. French (www.mtfrench.com) is a health economist and Professor (joint tenure) in the Department of Sociology (www.as.miami.edu/sociology/people/faculty/michael-t-french) and Department of Health Sector Management and Policy (https://www.bus.miami.edu/thought-leadership/faculty/health-sector/french.html) at the University of Miami, with secondary appointments in the Department of Economics and Department of Public Health Sciences. He has been principal investigator or project leader on numerous research grants with the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and several state agencies. He is currently editor of the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics; on the editorial boards for Health Services Research, Evaluation and Program Planning, and Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment; and serves on several research advisory boards for universities, national and international companies, government agencies, and health care organizations. Dr. French has published over 180 peer-reviewed scholarly articles in a variety of multidisciplinary professional journals.
Peter D. Friedmann, MD, MPH, FASAM, FACP
University of Massachusetts Medical School; Baystate Healthhealth services research, substance use disorders, criminal justice
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Peter D. Friedmann, MD, MPH, FASAM, FACP
Dr. Friedmann is a primary care internist, addiction medicine clinician and established addiction health services researcher whose research examines the organization of addiction treatment services across the substance abuse treatment, medical and criminal justice systems.
Dr. Friedmann is the Associate Dean for Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School – Baystate as well as the Chief Research Officer for Baystate Health. He serves as a Professor of Medicine and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is a Fellow of the ASAM and American College of Physicians, a past president of the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA), and Associate Editor of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, and formerly serves as Specialty Director to the American Board of Addiction Medicine.
Jemima A. Frimpong, PhD
NYU Abu Dhabiinnovation sustainability, organizational interventions, performance improvement
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Jemima A. Frimpong, PhD
Jemima A. Frimpong, PhD has a broad background in health services research and organizational behavior, with expertise in research areas, including the adoption and sustainability of evidence-based practices, performance improvement and outcomes research. Her research focuses on understanding barriers and facilitators of HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) testing and treatment. The overarching goal of her research is the development, implementation, and evaluation of program and patient level interventions to increase HIV testing, linkage to care, and retention in care. Dr. Frimpong’s studies, which have been published in the American Journal of Public Health, have examined organizational-level determinants of the availability of HCV testing services, and missed opportunities for HCV testing. Her ongoing studies focus on developing interventions that promote the integration of services and linkage to care for HIV and HCV co-infected persons. Her research combines principles of organizational behavior and health services research, as well as quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.
Daniel Hartung, PharmD, MPH
Oregon State Universitypharmacy policy, opioid use disorder, drug utilization
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Daniel Hartung, PharmD, MPH
Daniel Hartung, PharmD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University / Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Hartung conducts pharmaceutical health services research and pharmacoepidemiology with an emphasis on substance use disorders and prescription drug policy. Dr. Hartung’s principal focus is determining how state and federal policies to reduce risks associated with prescription opioid misuse affect prescription drug utilization and health outcomes. To support his work, Dr. Hartung has secured over $4.8 million in grants and contracts (since 2014) from federal agencies such as AHRQ, CDC, and NIH (NIDA) and has published 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts, many as first author in high impact journals such as JAMA, Health Affairs, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Although much of Dr. Hartung’s work involves state Medicaid data, he also has experience working with PDMP, vital statistics, TEDS, and Medicare data. Within Oregon, Dr. Hartung has lead studies to link state administrative data to conduct SUDs policy and epidemiologic investigations. His current effort involves linking Oregon Department of Corrections data to other state data sources to characterize trends treatment patterns, overdose, and other outcomes for criminally involved individuals.
Jason M. Hockenberry, PhD
Yale School of Public Healthpublic policy evaluation, econometrics, substance use disorders
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Jason M. Hockenberry, PhD
Dr. Hockenberry is a health economist and health services researcher with expertise in using econometric techniques to analyze administrative, registry and electronic health record data to investigate the impacts of public health policies and to assess factors affecting the quality, efficiency, and cost of healthcare. Within these broader areas he has made particular contributions in the area of behavioral health policy and behavioral health services. A particular feature of much of Dr. Hockenberry’s work that is salient to CHERISH is the use of quasi-experimental methods that exploit state level policy variation to estimate whether the theorized effects of policy have empirical support, and whether there are unintended consequences of these policies.
Brady Horn, PhD
University of New Mexicorisky health behaviors, substance use disorders
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Brady Horn, PhD
I am an applied micro-economist with a focus in public economics and applied econometrics. Topically, my main area of specialization is risky health behavior. A large portion of my research is dedicated to evaluating applied health programs, and I am particularly interested in the healthcare safety net and disadvantaged populations. As a researcher in New Mexico, there are many important and complicated health issues confronting our populations, including crime, substance abuse, and health disparities. To address these issues I have worked with researchers from many other disciplines including: law, psychology, medicine, engineering, and criminal justice. I have evaluated a number of programs in a number of different areas including drug courts, interventions for risky sexual behavior, telemedicine programs and care management for high-cost medically complex patients. Also, I am increasingly interested in empirical methods used to understand incentives and/or behavior when market data is not available or when traditional identification strategies do not work (e.g., surveys, changes in property values and/or voting behavior). I am particularly interested in the secondary impacts and unintended consequences of policies that are intended to mitigate risky health behavior.
Elbert Huang, MD, MPH
University of Chicagocost-effectiveness analysis, health policy
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Elbert Huang, MD, MPH
Dr. Elbert Huang is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Chronic Disease Research and Policy at the University of Chicago. From 2010-2011, he served as a Senior Advisor to Richard Kronick in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Huang is a practicing primary care doctor who studies clinical and health care policy issues at the intersection of diabetes, aging, and health economics. His research has provided the theoretical and evidence-base foundation for the concept of personalizing diabetes care goals as well as the contemporary natural history of the disease in older people. Dr. Huang’s research has directly influenced modern diabetes care clinical practice guidelines for older people that now emphasize 1) individualization of glycemic goals, 2) the role of patient treatment preferences, 3) the clinical importance of hypoglycemia, and 4) management of geriatric conditions. He is an expert in the use of computer simulation models of chronic diseases.
As a primary care doctor on the South Side of Chicago, Dr. Huang routinely sees how gaps in our patchwork of safety net policies lead to critical deficiencies in care over a lifetime from young adulthood, middle age, to old age. Dr. Huang’s central policy interest is to strengthen the primary care safety net in order to improve the health of vulnerable populations. Specific areas of policy expertise include the 1) Diabetes/Obesity Epidemic, 2) the Aging Population and Long-Term Care, 3) the Rising Cost of Prescription Drugs such as Insulin, 4) the Value of Federally Qualified Health Centers, and 5) the Primary Care and Geriatrics Workforce.
Ali Jalali, PhD, MA
Weill Cornell Medicinehealth econometrics, economics evaluation, payment models
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Ali Jalali, PhD, MA
Ali Jalali is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Healthcare Policy & Research at the Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Prior to joining Weill Cornell, Dr. Jalali completed a PhD in Economics from the University of Utah, and received training as a health economist in the Health Economics Core of the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Jalali’s research interests include the social determinants of health, economic dimensions of substance use disorders, impact of labor market policies on population health, and the societal burden of preterm births and rare genetic disorders. Dr. Jalali has also researched the impact of bundled payment reforms on physician consolidation, the provision of adequate surgical care in lower and middle-income countries (particularly Ghana), and cost-effectiveness analysis of universal newborn screening for genetic disorders.
Shashi Kapadia, MD, MS
Dr. Shashi Kapadia is an Infectious Diseases physician and health services researcher whose work has focused on the equitable delivery of healthcare for people who use drugs and people living with HIV. He conducts both observational and interventional clinical research related to the uptake of hepatitis C virus treatment for this population. He has skills in observational clinical-epidemiologic research, in health economic and policy analyses, and has experience with clinical trials. Specific ongoing projects include 1) examining the uptake of hepatitis C virus testing and treatment among primary care and substance use treatment providers; 2) testing the effectiveness and measuring the cost of an intervention to co-locate hepatitis C treatment in syringe service programs; and 3) testing the safety and effectiveness of rapid treatment starts for hepatitis C among people who inject drugs. Dr Kapadia is affiliated with the Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use Disorder, HCV, and HIV (CHERISH) and the Center for Health Equity, both based at Weill Cornell.
Noa Krawczyk, PhD
NYU Grossman School of Medicinebarriers to SUD treatment, stigma reduction
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Noa Krawczyk, PhD
Noa Krawczyk is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine and a member of the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy. She completed her PhD in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she studied substance use epidemiology, and previously worked as a Fulbright research scholar to study treatment and health services among cocaine users in Brazil. Her research focuses on studying ways to address barriers to evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorders and improving quality and effectiveness of care, especially among vulnerable groups such as persons with criminal justice involvement. Her work centers on bridging research and practice by collaborating with health organizations, public health and government agencies and advancing science that can help inform evidence-based policies and practices that reduce harm and promote long term recovery.
Emanuel Krebs, MA
Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences (CHÉOS)econometric analyses, resource allocation, policy
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Emanuel Krebs, MA
Emanuel Krebs is a Health Economist specializing in econometric and model-based approaches for informing evidence-based policy decisions to improve public health. His current research focuses on quantifying the public health impact and cost-effectiveness of different HIV prevention and treatment combination strategies to help prioritize allocation of resources, as well as estimating the health benefits and cost savings associated with the treatment of opioid use disorder. He received his master’s degree in economics at Simon Fraser University.
Margaret Kuklinski, PhD, MA
University of Washington School of Social Workeconomic evaluation, evidence-based preventive interventions
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Margaret Kuklinski, PhD, MA
Margaret Kuklinski, PhD, is Senior Research Scientist and Assistant Director at the Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington. A prevention scientist and health economist, Dr. Kuklinski’s work focuses on promoting healthy behaviors and positive development through evidence-based intervention. Her expertise includes prevention science and evaluation, the role of risk and protection in adolescent development, the social development model, health economics, and clinical psychology.
Dr. Kuklinski is currently MPI on a multisite trial testing the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an evidence-based parenting program in three large, integrated healthcare systems. She is also MPI on the longitudinal evaluation of the Communities That Care prevention system, which has demonstrated impact on preventing drug use and antisocial behavior from adolescence into young adulthood.
Dr. Kuklinski is an elected board member of the Society for Prevention Research (SPR). Prior service includes a National Academy of Medicine consensus panel focused on increasing the quality and usefulness of economic evaluations, and an SPR Task Force that established standards for conducting economic evaluations of preventive interventions.
Dr. Kuklinski earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and an AB in Economics from Harvard University.
Neda Laiteerapong, MD, MS
University of Chicagohealthcare disparities, health policy
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Neda Laiteerapong, MD, MS
Neda Laiteerapong, MD, MS is a board-certified general internist and Associate Director for the Center for Chronic Disease Research and Policy at the University of Chicago. She is committed to promoting lifelong health by individualizing the prevention and treatment of physical and mental chronic diseases. She is a leading researcher in the field of individualizing diabetes treatment and locally, leads efforts to integrate behavioral health care into primary care at the University of Chicago. She is also the Associate Director for the Center for Chronic Disease Research and Policy at the University of Chicago, a Center focused on promoting research and policies that bridge the gaps between medical practice, medical research and health policy, because she is interested in advancing the speed in which scientific discoveries are translated into improved health outcomes.
Karen Lasser, MD, MPH
Boston University Medical Centerhealth disparities, safety-net hospitals, tobacco
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Karen Lasser, MD, MPH
Dr. Lasser is Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College, her M.D. from Cornell, and her M.P.H. from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an internal medicine residency and chief residency at Boston City Hospital and a fellowship in general internal medicine at Harvard. She has been PI on studies supported by the AHRQ, the American Cancer Society, NIDA and NHLBI. Her research focuses on improving quality of care in primary care for underserved patient populations and reducing health disparities. Dr. Lasser’s work has received international recognition; she has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, and the American Journal of Public Health. Dr. Lasser is a practicing primary care physician at Boston Medical Center, the largest safety-net hospital in New England.
Alain Litwin, MD
University of South Carolina School of Medicine GreenvilleHCV, epidemiology, patient-centered outcomes
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Alain Litwin, MD
Alain H Litwin, MD is Vice Chair of Academics and Research in the Department of Medicine and Professor of Medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville and a Professor at Clemson University School of Health Research. He received his medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, LA, and completed his residency at New York University Medical Center. His research is focused on developing and studying models of hepatitis C virus (HCV) care for drug users, and on advocating for increasing access to effective care for HCV-infected patients. He has worked with government and community organizations on efforts to expand access to HCV treatment and has collaborated on policy statements, clinical guidelines, task forces, strategic plans, and educational curricula with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York State Department of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and American Society of Addiction Medicine. Dr Litwin is board certified in internal medicine and addiction medicine.
Margaret Lowenstein, MD, MPhil, MSHP
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of MedicineOUD, implementation science, low-barrier treatment
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Margaret Lowenstein, MD, MPhil, MSHP
Dr. Margaret (Maggie) Lowenstein is a general internist, addiction medicine physician, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Lowenstein’s research focuses on novel strategies for implementing evidence-based treatment and harm reduction interventions for opioid and other substance use disorders. She is particularly interested in the use of low-barrier touchpoints to reduce barriers to care, including acute settings and mobile outreach. Dr. Lowenstein has also conducted research on state policies related to opioid prescribing and is engaged in research and advocacy to increase uptake of opioid use disorder treatment in general medical settings. She received her undergraduate degree at Williams College, a Master’s degree in Biology and Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge as a Herchel Smith Fellow, and her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She completed her residency training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco in the UCSF primary care program and then a fellowship in the National Clinicians Scholars Program Penn.
Thanh Lu, PhD
Weill Cornell MedicineSUD, health economics, applied econometrics
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Thanh Lu, PhD
Thanh Lu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Comparative Effectiveness & Outcomes Research in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine, a CHERISH Research Affiliate, and a CHERISH pilot grant recipient. Lu has robust expertise in conducting economic analyses with a range of data sources including emergency department encounters, hospital discharge records, and surveys. One of her recent publications examined the relationship between recreational marijuana laws and household spending on food and alcohol.
Lu received her undergraduate degree from the Clarion University of Pennsylvania and graduated from Temple University with a master’s and doctoral degree in economics.
Catherine Maclean, PhD
Temple Universitypolicy analysis, substance use disorder, econometrics
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Catherine Maclean, PhD
Dr. Maclean’s research uses health and labor economic theory to empirically explore the effects of public policies and employment, particularly as it relates to substance use, body weight, and mental health. Her current work focuses on the influence of public policies on substance use, causes and consequences of substance use and mental health, and the role of employment in substance use and mental health.
Tami Mark, PhD, MBA
RTI Internationalhealth care policy, mental health, substance use disorders, health care quality measures
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Tami Mark, PhD, MBA
Tami L. Mark, PhD, is an internationally known health economist and expert on behavioral health care financing and delivery.
Dr. Mark collaborates with Federal and state agencies to improve their behavioral health treatment systems through research, data analytics, technical assistance, and policy development. She has authored more than 100 scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous government reports on behavioral health financing and delivery. She was a contributing author to the healthcare systems chapter of The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health. She serves on the behavioral health advisory committee of the National Quality Forum, and is on the board of Cornerstone Montgomery. She has also served on advisory committees for NIH, SAMHSA and AHRQ
In September 2017 she addressed the issue of payment and coverage of substance use disorders at a summit hosted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the CMS Innovation Center on innovations in behavioral health payment and care delivery.
Before joining RTI in 2017, Dr. Mark was a vice president and Director of the Center for Behavioral Health Services Research at Truven Health Analytics, an IBM company, previously known as Thomson Reuters and Medstat.
Brandon Marshall, PhD
Brandon Marshall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. He has longstanding expertise in substance use epidemiology and in the use of advanced quantitative methods to evaluate public health interventions. He is the inaugural recipient of NIDA’s Avenir award (DP2-DA040236), which supports his research program involving agent-based modeling to study HIV transmission among people who use drugs. In addition, he am the Scientific Director www.PreventOverdoseRI.org, Rhode Island’s drug overdose surveillance program, and serves as an expert advisor to the Governor’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force.
Erika Martin, PhD, MPH
SUNY University at Albanyhealth policy, resource allocation, open data
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Erika Martin, PhD, MPH
Erika Martin is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at SUNY-Albany. Dr. Martin uses mixed methods to evaluate the allocation of scarce public health resources, adoption and impact of public health policies, and ways to improve the sustainability and impact of open health data platforms. Her work in HIV policy includes evaluating: federal Ryan White funding formulas, interstate variation in HIV drug formularies, the budget impact of expanded HIV screening, repealing the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange, how the Affordable Care Act will affect HIV care, the impact of New York’s HIV testing law and Ending the Epidemic policy strategies, and the evolution of New York’s policy response to opioid overdose. In addition to her HIV policy research, she studies how public health agencies can release open data in a way that is more usable and fit for public health research. She has considerable experience working with government clients to translate evidence-based research into practice.
She received her B.A. from Brown University, her M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan, and her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Administration from Yale University.
Natasha Martin, DPhil
University of California San Diegoepidemic modeling, people who inject drugs, prisoners
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Natasha Martin, DPhil
Dr. Natasha Martin is an infectious disease economic modeler who develops dynamic transmission models to evaluate the impact and cost-effectiveness of public health interventions. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California San Diego and holds an honorary senior lecturer position at the University of Bristol. She is also the co-director of the Biostatistics and Modeling Core of the University of California San Diego Center for AIDS Research (UCSD CFAR). She has worked for 18 years developing mathematical models of disease progression and transmission in both communicable and non-communicable diseases. For the past eight years, her primary research has focused on modeling hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV transmission and prevention among high-risk groups such as people who inject drugs (PWID), men who have sex with men, and female sex workers.
Angélica Meinhofer, PhD
Weill Cornell Medicinehealth economics, public policy, SUD
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Angélica Meinhofer, PhD
Dr. Meinhofer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. She specializes in health economics and applied microeconomics. Her research examines the impact of public health interventions and drug policies on the market for controlled substances.
Bohdan Nosyk, PhD, MA
St. Paul's Hospital; Simon Fraser Universityeconomic evaluation, simulation modeling, health system performance
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Bohdan Nosyk, PhD, MA
Dr. Nosyk was appointed as Associate Professor and St. Paul’s Hospital CANFAR Chair in HIV/AIDS Research at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser Universityin February 2013. Dr. Nosyk holds a Master’s degree in Economics and a doctorate in public health, with a concentration in health economics, both from the University of British Columbia. He previously served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles and leads the Health Economic Research Unit at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. He currently holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award.
Todd Olmstead, PhD
University of Texas at Austin LBJ School of Public Affairseconomic evaluations, addiction health services research
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Todd Olmstead, PhD
Todd Olmstead is an associate professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Olmstead is the health economist on several large grants funded by the National Institutes of Health in the area of behavioral health. Current research projects include estimating the cost-effectiveness of (a) integrating substance abuse treatment services directly into hospital inpatient units, (b) providing mental health services to low-income pregnant and parenting women living in public housing systems, and (c) providing early childhood obesity prevention programs to children attending Head Start centers. Other projects include estimating the impact of community health paramedic programs on the use of health care services.
Michael Pesko, PhD
Georgia State University Andrew Young School of Policy Studiestobacco control, health insurance, e-cigarettes
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Michael Pesko, PhD
Michael (Mike) Pesko is a health economist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Georgia State University. Dr. Pesko’s research focuses on evaluating health policy changes, especially those affecting tobacco users. Dr. Pesko has received research funding from the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society (among other outlets).
Harold Pollack, PhD, MPP
University of Chicago School of Social Service AdministrationMedicaid, criminal justice, simulation analysis
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Harold Pollack, PhD, MPP
Dr. Pollack is the Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration, co-director of University of Chicago Health Lab, co-founder and co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Much of his recent work assists local policymakers at the interface of behavioral health and criminal justice systems.
Ioana Popovici, PhD
Nova Southeastern Universityopioid use disorder, alcohol use disorder
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Ioana Popovici, PhD
Ioana Popovici, PhD, is a health economist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociobehavioral and Administrative Pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Popovici specializes in the economics of substance use, with research interests in three interconnected topics: 1) economic evaluation of substance abuse treatment interventions, 2) understanding the relationship between substance use and its economic consequences, and 3) econometric methods for studying substance use and the effect of public policies on substance use and health outcomes.
David Powell, PhD
David Powell is a Senior Economist at RAND. He has extensive research on understanding the current state of the opioid crisis and policies which can reduce overdoses. His work on the opioid crisis has been published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Health Economics, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Health Affairs. In addition to research on the opioid epidemic, Dr. Powell has published research on the effectiveness of medical care in workers’ compensation and the effects of income taxes on labor supply. He also has forthcoming work on the estimation of quantile treatment effects as well as research on panel data inference. Dr. Powell received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT.
Jonathan Purtle, DrPH, MPH, MSc
New York University School of Global Public Healthdissemination research, policy implementation
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Jonathan Purtle, DrPH, MPH, MSc
Jonathan Purtle is a policy dissemination and implementation researcher who focuses on issues related to mental health, substance use, and health equity. His research adopts, adapts, and integrates theories and methods from the social sciences to understand how scientific evidence can be most effectively communicated to policymakers and translated into practice. He is PI of a RWJF-funded study that is testing the effects of strategic frames about toxic stress on public and policymaker support for child development policies and stigma towards children and families. He is also Co-Director of a NIMH-funded P50 project (PIs Hoagwood and McKay) that is using agent-based modeling to understand factors that influence research use in children’s state mental health policymaking. He was PI of a NIMH-funded R21 that surveyed to state legislators to understanding their opinions about various behavioral health issues, how they use evidence in decision making, and their preferences for different types of evidence (including cost-effectiveness and budget impact data).
Michael Richards, MD, PhD, MPH
Baylor Universitysubstance use disorders, serious mental illness
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Michael Richards, MD, PhD, MPH
Michael R. Richards, MD, PhD, MPH, was part of the early admissions program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, where he ultimately received his BS, MD, and MPH degrees. He then went on to complete his PhD in health economics at Yale University, which was immediately followed by a postdoctoral research position within the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. After leaving Penn, he spent three years as an Assistant Professor within Vanderbilt University’s Department of Health Policy before joining Baylor University’s Department of Economics and Hankamer School of Business. Richards is an empirical economist and has carried out a variety of studies on health policy topics. His primary research area involves health care provider responses to public policies and evolving market environments.
Robert Rosenman, PhD, MA
Washington State Universityhealth behaviors, econometric modeling, binary data
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Robert Rosenman, PhD, MA
Dr. Rosenman is an economist and applied econometrician with extensive experience in health economics and the economics of prevention. He is well-versed in performing economic analyses on primary and secondary datasets of all sizes. He have worked on projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation, the American Hospital Association and others. He has hands-on experience in health care institutions with my role on the board of his local hospital.
Brendan Saloner, PhD
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Healthopioid use disorder, health insurance, access to care
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Brendan Saloner, PhD
Brendan Saloner, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research focuses on the intersection between health and social policy, particularly on the role of health insurance in promoting access to care, financial protection, and wellness. Dr. Saloner has extensive research focused on the financing, organization, and delivery of mental health and substance use treatment among children, adolescents, and young adults. He is interested in the transformation of public sector behavioral health and primary care health systems under the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Saloner is also interested in applied ethical issues related to equitable health care financing and the design of health insurance.
Yuyan Shi, PhD
University of California, San Diegoopioid use disorder, overdose, marijuana
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Yuyan Shi, PhD
Yuyan Shi is a health policy analyst and health economist with research interests in policy and economic analysis of drug abuse, including but not limited to the abuse of tobacco, marijuana, opioid analgesics, and other illicit and prescription drugs. She is interested in understanding the epidemiology and geographic patterns of drug abuse, evaluating the impacts of economics and health policies in vulnerable subgroups and in the general population as a whole, applying behavioral economics approach to assess preferences for drugs, and conducting economic evaluations to assess cost-effectiveness/cost-utility/cost-benefit of behavioral interventions. She is particularly interested in epidemiology of novel tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and hookah, health consequences of marijuana and opioid use among vulnerable population, neighborhood environments of marijuana use, marijuana purchasing behaviors, and impacts of marijuana legalization policies on marijuana and opioid outcomes. She is specialized in economics and statistical modeling, spatial analysis, conjoint analysis, and policy evaluation using primary and secondary large population data.
Theresa Shireman, PhD, MS
Brown University School of Public Healthhealth services research, pharmacoepidemiology
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Theresa Shireman, PhD, MS
Theresa Shireman (she pronouns) is the Director of the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research and Vice-Chair of the Department of Health Services, Policy & Practice, in the School of Public Health. She is a health services researcher who specializes in pharmacoepidemiology and health economic evaluations. Significant research achievements include contributions to understanding how medications are used and to what effect in people who are on chronic dialysis, development of a novel methodology to tracking medication exposure over time, development of a bleeding risk prediction model for warfarin in older adult patients with atrial fibrillation, and health economic evaluations of expensive therapeutic agents. In addition, she has managed numerous contracts with the State Medicaid agencies evaluating pharmaceutical use in children with disabilities and other vulnerable populations, examining the quality of diabetes care for people with disabilities, and creating a claims-based algorithm to distinguish between important subgroups of individuals with disabilities. She teaches graduate courses on pharmacoepidemiology, cost-effectiveness analysis, and economics of the pharmaceutical industry, and advises graduate students and clinician researchers.
Kosali Simon, PhD
O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana Universityhealth economics, health policy
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Kosali Simon, PhD
Dr. Kosali Simon joined O’Neill as a professor in 2010. In 2016 she was named a Herman B Wells Endowed Professor, becoming only the third recipient of this honor at Indiana University. In 2019 she was appointed Associate Vice Provost (AVP) for Health Sciences at IUB.
Simon is a nationally known health economist who specializes in applying economic analysis in the context of health insurance and health care policy. Her current research mainly focuses on the impact of health insurance reform on healthcare and labor market outcomes, and on the causes and consequences of the opioid crisis. She is also active in national leadership roles in her profession, serving on several boards and in editorial positions. A summary of her recent research appears in the 2018 National Bureau of Economic Research Reporter.
Simon is a research associate of the National Bureau for Economic Research, a group with which she has been affiliated since 2002. She serves as a member of the governing body of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and management (APPAM). From 2009-2016, she served as a board member of the American Society of Health Economists; from 2014-2017 she served as a board member of the American Economic Association (AEA)’s Committee on the Status of Women in Economics (CSWEP), and directed the national mentoring program for female assistant professors in economics. She also served a three-year term with the nation’s largest health philanthropy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF); in 2013, she was selected to the National Advisory Committee of RWJF Health Policy Scholars Program, a committee composed of 13 nationally recognized experts in social science and health policy. In 2007, Simon was recognized for her early contributions to health services research as the recipient of the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators.
Related to editorial roles, she is Editor for the Journal of Health Economics, Co-Editor of Journal of Human Resources and editorial board member for the American Journal of Health Economics and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. She is former Associate Editor of Health Economics (2009-2018) and former co-editor of Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (2010-2015).
Laura Starbird, PhD, RN
University of Pennsylvania School of NursingOUD, implementation science, cost analysis
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Laura Starbird, PhD, RN
Dr. Starbird is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI). Dr. Starbird conducts implementation science research and cost analyses focused on the intersection of substance use, infectious disease, and women’s health. Her work, informed by experience as a public health nurse, seeks to improve the way organizations deliver care to marginalized communities, rather than putting the burden on the individual patient.
Thomas Stopka, PhD, MHS
Tufts University School of Medicinespatial epidemiology, opioid use disorder, infectious disease epidemiology
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Thomas Stopka, PhD, MHS
Dr. Thomas Stopka is an assistant professor with the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at the Tufts University School of Medicine. He has contributed to and led numerous mixed methods, multidisciplinary, and translational studies focused on the intersection of opioid use disorder (OUD), overdose, and injection-mediated comorbidities since 1999. Dr. Stopka has employed geographic information systems (GIS), spatial epidemiological, qualitative, and biostatistical approaches in multi-site, multi-investigator studies and public health interventions to better understand and curb the opioid syndemic. He is currently an investigator on a NIDA-funded UG3 study focused on development and implementation of evidence-based interventions among rural opioid users in New England. He is the Site-PI of an NCATS-funded translational science intervention study to enhance distribution of naloxone in community pharmacies in Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Minnesota. Dr. Stopka has also led and contributed to studies focused on: (1) medication for OUD following nonfatal overdoses; (2) associations between potentially inappropriate opioid prescribing, overdose, and all-cause mortality; (3) spatial analyses to identify and characterize statistically significant hotspot clusters for overdose, HCV, and HIV; and (4) geographic access to naloxone and sterile syringes to prevent overdose and disease transmission.
Cindy Parks Thomas, PhD
Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Managementsubstance use disorders, pharmacotherapy, performance management
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Cindy Parks Thomas, PhD
Cindy Parks Thomas, Ph.D, is Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Brandeis University Heller Graduate School, with a research focus on pharmaceutical spending and policy, technology transfer, and substance use disorders. In behavioral health, her work includes adoption, cost and clinical impact of new treatments for substance abuse, monitoring the prescribing and use of controlled substances and treatment pharmacotherapies, and development of performance measures for medication assisted treatment of substance use disorders. Additional published work includes adoption of health information technology and electronic prescribing, insurance benefit design, and prescription drug management practices in managed care organizations.
Benjamin Ukert, PhD
Texas A&M University School of Public HealthSUD, health policy, risky health behaviors
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Benjamin Ukert, PhD
Benjamin Ukert is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy & Management at Texas A&M. His research focuses on the evaluation of the interactions of patients, insurers, and providers in the health care system. Dr. Ukert has dedicated a large proportion of his research agenda to understand the impact of the Affordable Care Act on patient care access, utilization, and health outcomes. He has published several papers on this topic in leading health and policy journals in which he and his colleagues developed a method to simultaneously evaluate how the Medicaid expansions and the private marketplace expansion affected insurance coverage and other health outcomes. In terms of other research, Dr. Ukert has evaluated the impact of the Patient Centered Medical Home on care patterns and quality of care, where he investigated how heterogeneous practice attributes differentially affect care utilization. He has also ongoing work estimating the efficacy of care coordination paired with the use of machine learning techniques. Here, he evaluates how a predictive algorithm driven intervention affects care utilization among chronically ill Medicare members. An especially intriguing aspect on the use of predictive models is an ongoing project evaluating whether the predictive algorithm can target members who may be especially suited to benefit from care coordination efforts compared to members who receive an intervention independent of a predictive algorithm.
Katherine Wen, PhD, MS, MPP
Brown School of Public Healthhealth economics, applied microeconomics
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Katherine Wen, PhD, MS, MPP
Katherine Wen is a postdoc in the Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University School of Public Health. Her research interest is in health economics and the intersection between public policy and health, including topics related to health behaviors and health insurance. Previously, she was an associate analyst at Abt Associates and a technical analyst at MDRC. She holds a PhD from Cornell University, a MPP from the University of Michigan, and a BA in economics from Bowdoin College.
Joseph West, SM, ScD
University of Miami Florida Institute for Health Innovationpopulation health sciences, value-based care models, economic models
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Joseph West, SM, ScD
Dr. West is a healthcare executive, epidemiologist, population health and data analytics leader with over 17 years of healthcare, research, and enterprise consulting experience. Dr. West has published more than 50 articles in academic and industry journals and received several public health awards. As a co-founder of a Medicaid MCO, he’s a recognized leader in population health management, outcomes-based healthcare, value-based models and LEAN processes. He has expertise in meta-analysis, statistical planning, data management, statistical methods and models, and clinical epidemiology. He’s experienced with managed care, Medicaid, third party payer and hospital systems. For Florida Institute Health for Innovation, Dr. West is leading the Research Program on Community Health and Equity. This program builds on decades of convening local community leaders, organizing community forums and working with healthcare, social service and political institutions across Florida and the United States. This includes population health, advanced payment models and operational mechanisms aimed at improving societal and structural influences on population-level patterns of social and environmental risk factors, interconnections and pathways determining cultural and overall well-being.
Eve Wittenberg, MPP, PhD
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Health Decision Sciencequality of life, economic utilities, stated preference methods
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Eve Wittenberg, MPP, PhD
Eve Wittenberg is a Senior Research Scientist in the Center for Health Decision Science. She studies methods for measuring patient-relevant outcomes, including quality of life, preferences, and economic utilities, and the integration of these measures into decision analysis. Her work also encompasses the psychology of decision making, and the influence of psychology on the perception and articulation of outcomes. She has a particular focus on women’s health, including homeless women, caregivers, and women with cancer.
Dr. Wittenberg teaches in the risk and decision science curriculum and the Executive and Professional Continuing Education Program at HSPH, and she advises doctoral students and trainees.
Kai Yeung, PharmD, PhD
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institutespecialty drugs, drug benefits
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Kai Yeung, PharmD, PhD
Kai Yeung, PharmD, PhD, is a pharmacist and scientist with expertise in pharmaceutical economics and outcomes research. He is interested in optimal incentives to encourage value in health care. Dr. Yeung does research in applied econometrics, health insurance design, and cost-effectiveness analysis. He received his PharmD from the University of Southern California and his PhD in pharmaceutical economics from the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research & Policy Program at the University of Washington.
Gary A. Zarkin, PhD, MA
RTI Internationalsubstance abuse economics, cost analysis, cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit analysis
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Gary A. Zarkin, PhD, MA
Gary A. Zarkin, PhD, is a Distinguished Fellow in Behavioral Health Economics at RTI International. He has led or participated in many projects involving the economic analysis of drug treatment, prevention, and studies of workplace substance abuse. Dr. Zarkin has published extensively on the cost, cost-effectiveness, and the benefit-cost of substance abuse interventions. He currently leads the Analytical Support Contract for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and is estimating the cost and cost-effectiveness of interventions on several projects funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He previously led the development of a method to estimate the cost of services (the Substance Abuse Services Cost Analysis Program [SASCAP]) for methadone treatment, a therapy for opioid dependence. Before coming to RTI, Dr. Zarkin was an assistant professor of economics at Duke University and a research associate professor at Duke University’s Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences. He has published on economics, substance abuse, and health service topics in a wide range of professional journals.
Melissa Zielinski, PhD
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciencesaddiction, mental illness
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Melissa Zielinski, PhD
Dr. Melissa Zielinski is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas. She completed a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arkansas and pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship in Addiction Research at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences. Dr. Zielinski serves as the evaluator for the Pulaski County Regional Crisis Stabilization Unit (PCRCSU), one of Arkansas’ four state-mandated crisis stabilization units intended to aid in diverting people who come into contact with police due to acute mental health crises from jails and into a medically-appropriate level of care.
Kara Rudolph, PhD, MHS, MPH
Columbia Universityopioid use disorder, epidemiology, statistics, causal inference
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Kara Rudolph, PhD, MHS, MPH
Kara Rudolph is an epidemiologist with research interests in developing and applying causal inference methods to understand social and contextual influences on mental health, substance use, and violence in disadvantaged, urban areas of the United States. Her current work focuses on developing methods for transportability and mediation, and subsequently applying those methods to understand how aspects of the school and peer environments mediate relationships between neighborhood factors and adolescent drug use across populations. More generally, her work on generalizing/ transporting findings from study samples to target populations and identifying subpopulations most likely to benefit from interventions contributes to efforts to optimally target available policy and program resources. She completed a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and an M.H.S. in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar.
Dhruv Khurana, PhD, MS, MA
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLApolicy evaluations, health disparities, cost-effectiveness/benefit-cost analysis
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Dhruv Khurana, PhD, MS, MA
Dhruv Khurana, Ph.D., works as a Senior Economist-Statistician at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine’s Division of Addiction Psychiatry (DAP). His research at DAP focuses on evaluating the impact of the California Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System/1115 waiver and the impact of Prop 64, which legalized the use of recreational marijuana in California. Additionally, he works as a Health Economist at Riverside County’s Public Health Department, where his research focuses on the impact of incorporating Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) in routine primary care delivery on patient health outcomes and utilization.
Owing to his diverse experiences as a Behavioral and Health Economist, Dr. Khurana takes a multidisciplinary approach in his research and teaching. He was recognized as a “Diversity Scholar” by the American Society of Health Economists (ASHE) in 2020. He currently teaches Health Services Research Methods in the Department of Health Policy & Management at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Dr. Khurana received his Ph.D. in Economics and a Master of Arts in Behavioral and Neuroeconomics from Claremont Graduate University and a Master of Science in Finance from The London School of Economics.