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
Albert Einstein College of Medicineopioid 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.
Yuhua Bao, PhD
Weill Cornell Medicinemental health care, patient-centered outcomes
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Yuhua Bao, PhD
Dr. Yuhua Bao studies economic and policy issues relating to mental health care access, processes, and outcomes. Major themes of her research include: payment, performance evaluation, delivery, and coverage policies to promote integration of evidence-based mental health care in general medical settings (e.g. primary care); prescription drug coverage and control policies, provider prescribing behaviors, and how they interact to affect patient use of psychotropic and pain medications; need, challenges, and opportunities to improve the quality of mental health care and patient-centered outcomes among older patients receiving home health care; and, chemotherapy use among patients with end-stage cancer and related outcomes and policy implications.
Trained as a health economist, Dr. Bao specializes in the design and conduct of quantitative health services research. She has recently developed skills and experience with qualitative research methods and is developing research projects that adopt a mixed-methods approach.
Joshua Barocas, MD
Boston University 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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Alexander Cowell, PhD
RTI Internationaleconomic evaluations, behavioral health, criminal justice
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Alexander Cowell, PhD
Dr. Cowell is 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).
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.
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.
Jemima A. Frimpong, PhD
Johns Hopkins Carey Business Schoolinnovation 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.
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.
Jason M. Hockenberry, PhD
Emory Universitypublic 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
The 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.
Emanuel Krebs, MA
BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDSeconometric 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.
Karen Lasser, MD, MPH
Boston Universityhealth 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Michael Richards, MD, PhD, MPH
Vanderbilt Universitysubstance use disorders, serious mental illness
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Michael Richards, MD, PhD, MPH
Michael R. Richards, MD, PhD, MPH, was a University of Pennsylvania postdoctoral researcher within the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and Wharton School from 2013 – 2015 and has been a faculty member of Vanderbilt University since his time at Penn. He has carried out a variety of empirical studies on health policy and economic topics, with his primary research area involving health care provider responses to payment policies, regulation, and industry trends. He completed his PhD training at Yale University prior to joining LDI and was awarded his MD and MPH degrees from the University of Illinois immediately preceding his PhD studies. Recently published or forthcoming work can be found in the New England Journal of Medicine, Medical Care, Milbank Quarterly, Health Economics Policy & Law, Health Services Research, Health Economics, and the American Journal of Health Economics.
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.
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
University of Pennsylvania Leonard Davis Institute of Health EconomicsSUD, health policy, risky health behaviors
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Benjamin Ukert, PhD
Benjamin D. Ukert is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and the Injury Science Center at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is health economist whose research aims to understand how public policy changes affect health. He has a specific interest in the areas of risky behaviors, insurance reform, public transfer programs, and crime prevention. His current research investigates how provider driven interventions impact and insurance expansions affect healthcare utilization. Other research studies whether gun regulation in Australia and school closures had an impact on firearm mortality and crime, respectively.
Alex Walley, MD, MSc
Boston University School of Medicineoverdose prevention, fentanyl dynamics, OUD medications
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Alex Walley, MD, MSc
Alexander Y. Walley, M.D., M.Sc., is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a general internist and addiction medicine specialist at Boston Medical Center. He is the director of the Boston Medical Center Addiction Medicine Fellowship program. His research focus is on the medical complications of substance use, specifically HIV and overdose, and is an active investigator on clinical trials and cohort studies. He provides primary care and office-based addiction treatment for patients with HIV at Boston Medical Center and methadone maintenance treatment at Health Care Resource Centers. He is the medical director for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Opioid Overdose Prevention Pilot Program. Since 2007, the MDPH program has trained over 60,000 people in Massachusetts’s communities, including people who use opioids, people in recovery, and their social networks.
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.