Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Health Services Research Training Program

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Directors

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Program Staff

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Current Trainees

Post-Doctoral Trainees

Pre-Doctoral Trainees

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Past Trainees

AHRQ Post-Doctoral Trainees 2005-2007

DR. TRACY L. FINLAYSON, PHD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Services Administration at San Diego State University. She is an interdisciplinary health services researcher with training in Sociology/Social Psychology. Her main areas of research are exploring the psychosocial determinants of oral health disparities and issues around access to dental care. Her research often integrates quantitative and qualitative methods when possible. She is also especially interested in health policy. Dr. Finlayson has been involved in evaluations of major state-level policy changes in Michigan and California, and previously interned at the Head Start Bureau.

HUI-CHU LANG received her PhD in Health Services Research in 1998 from Johns Hopkins University. Her dissertation was titled, "International Comparison of Patients' Willingness to Pay for Cataract Surgery." She is currently an Associate Professor at the Institute of Hospital and Healthcare Administration at the National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan. Her research interests include pharmacoeconomics, health care finance and management, outcome and quality of life, and medical decision making. She is currently involved in an "Economic Analysis of the Global Market for ADHD Medications" project, as well as a project titled, "The Economic Cost and Quality of Life of Cancer Patients."

AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainees 2005-2007

CARRIE HOVERMAN graduated from Dartmouth College in 2001 with a BA in Economics and a minor in Public Policy. Most recently, Carrie worked in the Health Unit of the RAND Corporation in Washington, DC. Carrie's work at RAND included projects measuring the unmet demand for primary care in Washington, monitoring provider responses to changes in Medicare payment systems, measuring access to post-acute care for Medicare beneficiaries, and evaluating outcomes of joint replacement. Prior to working at RAND, Carrie worked at National Economic Research Associates (NERA) in antitrust and intellectual property economics. She is currently working on her PhD in Health Economics at UC Berkeley.

JENNY LIU, MPP, MA is currently pursuing her Ph.D in Health Economics, with a focus on health policy in developing countries. She has worked in China on issues related to HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases. Her other research project topics include workforce policy and social capital and health. She obtained her Master's in Public Policy and MA in International Studies as well as her BA in Molecular Cell Biology and East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. Jenny was an AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainee from 2006-2007.

NONA KOCHER received her BA in Economics from Bryn Mawr College in June 2000; she was awarded a MPH from UC Berkeley in June 2004. This is Nona's second year working on her PhD in Health Services and Policy Analysis at Berkeley with a strong interest in health economics. Her research projects include studying physician supply in the United States over the past forty years. Nona was an AHRQ pre-doctoral trainee for two years.

SHANNON MCCONVILLE received her MPP from UCLA and her BA in Political Science from Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo. She is a first year PhD student in the Health Economics program at UC Berkeley. Prior to coming to Berkeley, Shannon worked as a research analyst at the Stanford Department of Health Research and Policy and the UCLA School of Public Affairs. Her previous work focused on racial/ethnic disparities in infant mortality and the availability of employment based health insurance among welfare recipients. Shannon spent one year as an AHRQ predoctoral trainee.

AHRQ Post-Doctoral Trainees 2004-2007

ESTHER NEUWIRTH received her Bachelor's degree in Sociology and Women's Studies from Brandeis University in 1989 and her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Davis in June 2004. Her dissertation examines the evolving role of temporary-help staffing agencies and the increasing use of the contingent workforce. The central argument of her dissertation is that temporary-help staffing agencies are actively shaping labor market processes, rather than simply reacting to impersonal market forces. These findings advance our knowledge of changing employment structures and signal the need for newly designed public policies aimed at redefining the relationship between employer and employee. Esther's primary research interests include the study of organizations, work and occupations, social theory, economic sociology, and health care public policy. Esther has received numerous grants and fellowships, including those from the Institute for Labor and Employment, the Social Science Research Council - Program on the Corporation as a Social Institution, and the UC Davis Consortium for Women and Research. Esther is currently working as a Program Evaluation Consultant for Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute.

AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainees 2004-2007

SEPIDEH MODREK received her BA from UC Berkeley in Economics and Molecular Cell Biology in 2001. She is currently completing her PhD in the Health Services and Policy Analysis program at Berkeley with a diverse set of interests such as health's influence on educational outcomes, international health issues, and genomic health technology. Her research projects include studying international trends in ADHD medication use and the effects of educational environments in outcomes for children with ADHD.

SANGEETA AHLUWALIA received her BA from UC Berkeley in Anthropology in 1999. In 2001 she was awarded a MPH from the UCLA School of Health Policy. During the first year of her training program, Sangeeta worked with Dr. Helen Halpin at the School of Public Health analyzing Medicaid tobacco data. Her research emphasis is in health services and policy analysis and she is interested in the U.S. medical financing system.

JULIAN WIMBUSH received his Sc.B. from Brown University in Applied Mathematics in 1995. Previously, he studied different facets of the health care delivery system at the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research at Brown University, the Harvard Business School, and UCSF's Institute for Health Policy Studies. He also has extensive experience as a consultant for several Fortune 500 companies. His research emphases include innovation, organizational change, and comparative mental health systems in an international context. He is currently participating in a study analyzing the impact of a multidimensional innovation, the Chronic Care Model, on cost, process-efficiency, and quality of care.

AHRQ Post-Doctoral Trainees 2003

HELEN SCHNEIDER Helen holds a PhD in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University and is currently a faculty member in the Economics Department of the University of Texas, Austin. Her research interests include hospital supply of charity care, hospital mergers and hospital quality, monitoring costs, and CBA evaluation of public policies.

AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainees 2003

BRIAN QUINN received his bachelor's degree with honors in economics from Colby College. During college, he spent his junior year studying abroad at the London School of Economics. Prior to entering the University of California, Berkeley's PhD program in Health Services and Policy Analysis, Mr. Quinn worked as a Research Assistant/Programmer at Mathematica Policy Research. Mr. Quinn has since received his PhD and is currently the Program Officer in the Research and Evaluation Division of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

AHRQ Post-Doctoral Trainees 2002

FARASAT BOKHARI received his bachelor's degree in Economics and Physics in 1993 from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and his PhD in Policy Analysis and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2001. For his doctoral work, Farasat examined the effect of managed care on hospital utilization and technology adoption. He will be spending a substantial amount of his time testing the predictions of these models using a large set of hospital technologies. Other related projects he is interested in include: (i) The impact of technology on an HMO's decision to enter a local market, (ii) the proliferation of information technologies in hospitals, and (iii) the impact of managed care on medical research and development.

RICHARD SMITH holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Connecticut. His research has examined the role of consumer knowledge in health care markets, specifically its impact on utilization and quality. He is currently examining how realignment, the California legislation that devolved control of uninsured health and social services from the state to the counties, has affected spending on health services for the uninsured in the state.

AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainees 2002

JANET COFFMAN holds a PhD in health services and policy analysis and a master's degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley. She also has a master's degree in US history from the State University of New York, Binghamton. Her research interests include the health care workforce, evidence-based health policy, and access to care for vulnerable populations. Janet previously worked for the United States Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and the UC-San Francisco Center for the Health Professions. After completing her doctorate, she returned to UCSF as senior research analyst for the California Health Benefits Review Program at the Institute for Health Policy Studies.

MARY REED is a DrPH student at UC Berkeley; she also received her MPH in Epidemiology/Biostatistics at Berkeley. Previously, she has been involved in research on the health and utilization effects of cost-sharing, and the effects of technology on patient-physician communication.

AHRQ Post-Doctoral Trainees 2001

AARON CAUGHEY is currently an Assistant Professor in Residence at UCSF in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences. He is a graduate of both the Harvard Medical School and the Kennedy School of Government, earning his medical degree and master's in public policy. He also holds a master's in public health from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently completing his PhD in the Economics track of Health Services and Policy Analysis. Dr. Caughey's research interests are in outcomes research, clinical economics, and decision analysis. He has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications including studies of willingness to pay for prenatal testing, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility studies of genetic screening and prenatal diagnosis, costs within different clinical settings in obstetrics, and the utilities of vaginal and cesarean births.

SUONG LAM received her BA and MA in 1995 in a four-year economics program at the University of Southern California, as National Merit Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. She continued her studies at the University of California, Irvine, where she recently completed her PhD in Economics as a Social Science Merit Fellow. Suong enjoys working with large data sets and applying econometric techniques to analyze health aspects of developing countries. Her current interests include studying differences in racial access to and utilization of health care and how these may impact on mortality, birth weight, and other health measures across the races. Suong will study law at the University of California, Berkeley to pursue her interest in how laws affect insurance coverage, access, and utilization and how this ultimately affects health. Also, she hopes to provide more direct help to disadvantaged groups whose health suffers as a result.

AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainees 2001

JULIE SCHMITTDIEL received her bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her master's degree in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Health Services and Policy Analysis at Berkeley. Julie previously worked as a consultant at Kaiser Permanente Northern California's Division of Research, where she has investigated a variety of topics ranging from substance abuse care delivery to the cost of illness in a health maintenance organization. Her primary research interests include organizational determinants of the use of care management practices, and differences in primary care delivery by physician specialty and gender. She has also worked with Dr. Stephen Shortell on a national survey of physician organizations that focuses on the use of care management practices.

NICOLE BELLOWS Prior to joining the Health Services and Policy Analysis doctoral program at UC Berkeley, Nicole obtained a Masters in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. She has worked for several states as a health policy consultant in the areas of reimbursement, waiver development, and fraud detection. Nicole is currently working on a project to quantify the level of charity care delivered in California hospitals and the relationship between charity care provision and hospital performance.

MARGARET WANG received her BS in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from University of California, Los Angeles, her MPH from Boston University's School of Public Health, concentrating on epidemiology and health services, and her PhD in Health Services and Policy Analysis from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, she has worked as a research assitant for the Center for Health Quality, Outcomes, and Economics Research (CHQOER), a VA HSR&D research center affiliated with BUSPH. Her classwork and experience at CHQOER have exposed her to a variety of health services research topics, including risk adjustment techniques, healthcare quality assessment methodologies, organization delivery issues, and basic concepts in health economics. She has had the opportunity to work on a project to compare patient-centered and diagnosis-based risk adjustment approaches in predicting healthcare expenditure and had the chance to present the project's findings at two conferences that culminated in publication in a peer-reviewed journal. She is primarily interested in various organizational and individual factors influencing physician practice patterns and how such clinical practices affect patient outcomes and access to care.

AHRQ Post-Doctoral Trainees 2000

DAVID CHINITZ received a PhD in public policy analysis from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a senior lecturer in Health Policy and Management at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health in Jerusalem. He was a fellow of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, a Senior Researcher at the JDC/Brookdale Institute in Jerusalem, a Social Sciences Research Coordinator in the Israeli Ministry of Health, and a Visiting Associate Professor at New York University and Columbia University. Dr. Chinitz is presently a consultant for the European Region of the World Health Organization and serves on the boards of the European Health Management Association and the International Society for Priority Setting in Health Care. He has published articles and research reports on comparative health system reform, competition in health systems, surveys of citizen and patient satisfaction with health care services, and health care priority settings.

STEPHEN PAGE is Assistant Professor at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, where he teaches public management and administrative ethics. He has also served as a consultant to state and local governments and non-profit organizations that serve children and families. His research focuses on the inter-organizational design and management of social and health policies. He will become an Associate Professor in September 2006.

AHRQ Pre-Doctoral Trainees 2000

JONATHAN AGNEW received his A.B. (hons.) in Health and Society from Brown University and his doctorate in Health Services and Policy Analysis from UC Berkeley, where his research focused on prescription drug policy and comparative health policy. As an AHRQ pre-doctoral fellow, he published research on comparative health policy and studied the French and Spanish health care systems. After completing his dissertation, Dr. Agnew continued his research for two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia's Centre for Health Services and Policy Research. Dr. Agnew is a now a Senior Policy Analyst at the British Columbia Medical Association, where he is responsible for developing solutions and strategies on various health policy issues and participating in joint research projects with the government, universities, and other stakeholder organizations.

SANDRA SPATARO received a PhD from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. She teaches MBA elective courses in Communication and Social Influence as well as Leading High Performance Teams. Her research examines the influences of organizational social structures on individuals' work experiences, including how demographic diversity among coworkers affects the performance of work tasks and other work experiences, how demographic differences between coworkers influence cooperation and peer evaluations, and the formation and implications of informal status and power hierarchies in organizations.

SHERILYN TYE received her MPH and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in Health Services and Policy Analysis. Dr. Tye's dissertation examined the influence of health plan characteristics on women's use of screening mammography using the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. She has served as a research assistant with Dr. Kathryn Phillips at the University of California, San Francisco on a health services study directly related to her dissertation research. In recent years, Ms. Tye has participated in state and national professional meetings including the Association for Health Services Research Academy Meetings, the American Public Health Association's Annual Meeting, and the California State Office of Family Planning's Leadership Conference.