I am a Professor of Health Policy and Administration, and Demography at the Pennsylvania State University (USA). I received my AB in Economics and Government from Georgetown University (USA) and PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA). After receiving my PhD, I worked as a member of the research faculty of the Department of Health Sciences Research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota (USA). I then went on to join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, where I taught courses on health economic evaluation theory and methods for 15 years. In 2018, I joined the faculty of the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State, where I currently direct the PhD program in Health Policy and Administration and serve as the 2024-2025 Chair-Elect of the Graduate Council, which is responsible for setting University graduate academic policy.

My research interests involve development and application of machine learning and Bayesian methods for health economic evaluation and policy research. I also conduct research on the marginal value / opportunity cost threshold for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of health care expenditures and other investments in population health. Most recently, I have collaborated with faculty at New York University to develop a Bayesian multi-criteria decision analysis framework for the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), a comprehensive approach to developing and evaluating effective, affordable, scalable and efficient multicomponent behavioral and biobehavioral health interventions.

I served as the first Chair of the Statistical Methods in Health Economics and Outcomes Research Special Interest Group at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), co-taught the Introduction to Bayesian Analysis short course at ISPOR Annual for over 15 years and served on the ISPOR Machine Learning Task Force. I have served as an Associate Editor for Value in Health (and am currently a member of the editorial board) and as a member of the editorial board at Medical Decision Making. I also will begin service in 2024 as a member of the Tufts-CEVR CEA Registry Scientific Advisory Board.