Job-Seeking 2022-23 PhD Candidates

Danielle Edwards
Bioethics and Health Policy
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(202) 253-9695
Dissertation Title: Factors Affecting Menu Development and the Effectiveness and Ethical Considerations of 'Nudge' Techniques Designed to Encouraging Meatless Eating in Rural Restaurants
Dissertation Summary: High meat consumption can lead to numerous chronic health conditions. Furthermore, large-scale meat production has negative public health implications such as infectious diseases, occupational hazards, and climate change. This research explores how restaurant stakeholders structure customer choices and their attitudes and beliefs regarding meatless menu offerings; it tests the effects of increasing the proportion of meatless items offered on a menu, and it analyzes ethical considerations of various possible interventions designed to discourage meat consumption at the restaurant level.
Advisor: Jeffrey Kahn, PhD
Dissertation Committee Members: Mario Macis, PhD; Roni Neff, PhD, Anne Barnhill, PhD
Job Type Preferences: Primarily teaching, research services and management, program administration and management, and consultation opportunities in academic, clinical, government, private, non-profit, or community-based organizations.
Geographical Preferences: Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area

Crystal Lee Perez
Health and Public Policy
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(956) 458-2799
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Dissertation Title: Understanding Implementation of Healthy Kids' Meal Policies in the United States
Dissertation Summary: Healthy kids’ meal (HKM) policies target the nutritional composition of kids’ meals to make the healthy choice easier. There is ample variation in how they are written, which affects implementation, enforcement and the effectiveness of the policy for improving the health of the public. This dissertation evaluates the policies, describes their implementation and assesses correlates of kids’ meal purchases to inform policymakers, agencies, advocates and restaurants about HKM policy implementation.
Advisor(s): Keshia Pollack Porter, PhD; Alyssa Moran, ScD
Dissertation Committee Members: Shannon Frattaroli, PhD; Elizabeth Colantuoni, PhD
Job Type Preferences: Primarily interested in research, teaching, or consultation opportunities at academic, government, private, non-profit, or community-based organizations.
Geographical Preferences: New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Pacific regions of the United States; Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area and Austin, Texas; and, select international locations: Barcelona, Spain; Italy; and the United Kingdom.

Theo Schall
Bioethics and Health Policy
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Dissertation Title: Effects of insurance denials for gender-affirming care on US transgender adults
Dissertation Summary: Transgender people in the US face significant health disparities. Access to gender-affirming care (GAC) has been shown to improve health outcomes and quality of life, but insurers frequently refuse to cover GAC. This dissertation examines correlates of coverage denial for GAC in a large (>2000) survey sample of transgender adults, and describes patient experiences of coverage denial for GAC based on 40 semi-structured interviews. Building on the empirical results, it normatively demonstrates that GAC ought to be considered medically necessary and covered by health insurance.
Advisor(s): Nancy Kass, ScD and Brendan Saloner, PhD
Dissertation Committee Members: Anne Barnhill, PhD; Chris Beyrer, PhD; Danielle German, PhD
Job Type Preferences: Primarily interested in research, research services/management or teaching opportunities at academic, government, or non-profit or community-based organizations.
Geographical Preferences: No preference.

Yashaswini Singh
Health Economics and Policy
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(240)-595-0094
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LinkedIn
Dissertation Title: Private Equity and Physician Practice Strategy
Dissertation Executive Summary: Growing acquisitions of multispecialty practices by private equity funds raise concerns that high-powered incentives of PE may distort patient-physician relationships to increase self-referrals with unknown implications for patient welfare. My dissertation uses novel data linkages to advance the literature on private equity and vertical integration in health care, by studying the precise ways that PE changes strategic referral behavior and the downstream effects on patient outcomes and spending.
Advisor(s): Daniel Polsky, PhD
Dissertation Committee Members: Matthew Eisenberg, PhD; Jodi Segal, MD
Job Type Preferences: Primarily research, teaching, or consultation at academic, private or for-profit organizations.
Geographical Preferences: Mid-Atlantic; Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area.

Elizabeth M. Stone
Health and Public Policy
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Website
Dissertation Title: The Role of State Agencies in Mental Health Services for Individuals with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities and Mental Illness
Dissertation Executive Summary: People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have high prevalence of mental health conditions but must navigate fragmented systems to receive services. This dissertation uses mixed methods to 1) understand the role of state mental health and IDD agencies in providing, coordinating, and regulating mental health services for those with dual diagnoses and 2) examine the impact of integrating these agencies on mental health service use and quality among those with dual diagnoses.
Advisor(s): Beth McGinty, PhD
Dissertation Committee Members: Danielle German, PhD, Alexander McCourt, PhD, JD, Elizabeth Stuart, PhD
Job Type Preferences: Primarily research at academic, government, non-profit or community-based organization or private, not-for-profit organizations.
Geographical Preferences: no preference

Julie Ward
Health and Public Policy
CV
E-Mail
(410)-929-0646
Dissertation Title: Beyond urban fatalities: An analysis of shootings by police in the United States
Dissertation Executive Summary: Despite concerns for injustice, research on shootings by police remains hampered by severe data limitations, including a dominant focus on fatal injuries only – about half of all shootings. This dissertation leverages an improved, media-based, national dataset; descriptive epidemiology; and multilevel modeling to examine similarities and differences in fatal and nonfatal shootings by police, characteristics of shootings in rural vs urban jurisdictions, and the role of gun prevalence nationally.
Advisor(s): Cassandra Crifasi, PhD, MPH (primary) and Daniel Webster, ScD, MPH (secondary)
Dissertation Committee Members: Odis Johnson Jr., PhD, Dylan B. Jackson, PhD, MS, Javier Cepeda, PhD, MPH
Job Type Preferences: Primarily research, teaching or research services or management, at academic, government or non-profit or community-based organizations.
Geographical Preferences: no preference