Faculty Profiles

 

 

Glenn Melnick, PhD, Blue Cross of California Professor of Health Care Finance at USC is the Director of the IPPAM Program. He teaches health economics and other courses in the School of Policy, Planning and Development. Dr. Melnick is also a consultant at RAND, where his primary research focus is on health care financing issues, particularly with respect to health care market competition and access to care. He has also led a number of projects in Indonesia, Taiwan, and China . Prior to coming to USC, Dr. Melnick served on the faculty of the UCLA School of Public Health. He is author of numerous publications including articles in American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, Medical Care, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, and Journal of Ambulatory Care Management. Dr. Melnick teaches in several IPPAM courses. He leads the course in Applied International Policy Analysis and Management Project.
Joyce Mann, PhD, is the Academic Director of the International Public Policy and Management Program at USC, a masters degree program for international students. Her research addresses issues of health care financing and access, particularly in the state of California. She has conducted studies of uncompensated hospital care and a evaluation of a health insurance plan for immigrant children in Los Angeles county. She has also worked on issues of health financing in a number of countries (Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria).
Joanna Yu, PhD, is the Director of Executive Education for IPPAM. She is an adjunct research member at RAND - Santa Monica, a visiting professor at Nanjing University in China and a consultant at General Veteran Hospital in Taiwan. Her specialties include comparative health insurance policy, fee scheduling, drug price management and strategic planning in health care field. A registered pharmacist in Taiwan, Dr. Yu has been working in the government, not-for-profit and private health sectors in both Taiwan and the U.S. She has been involved in health insurance research at Cornell Medical College, employee benefit research and evaluation in several not-for-profit organizations, and was invited to consult in the design of national health insurance in Taiwan. She has published one book and many research papers related with health care policy and management. Currently, Joanna is engaged in a project with the Chinese government aimed at building solvency of their national Health Care Fund. Among her other research and consulting activities, Joanna is a consultant for the Primary Care Physician Association, Taiwan, advising their global budget distribution in national health insurance, advises on a 1000 bed private hospital development in Beijing, is an economic advisor to the Shenzhen government and is pioneering a joint degree program between USC and Tsinghua University. Dr. Yu received her master degree of Community Health Management in the University of Cincinnati, Ohio and doctoral degree in the University of Southern California focusing on Health Policy and Management.
Melissa Succi Lopez, PhD, teaches management and planning courses in the IPPAM Program. Dr. Lopez has taught management, planning and finance courses at a number of universities, including the University of Michigan, the Connecticut School of Business, and California State University at Long Beach, and Chapman University. Dr. Lopez specializes in health systems management. She has co-authored several papers appearing in publications such as Medical Care, Journal of Health and Social Behavior and Health Services Management. Her research interests include the causes and consequences of hospital-physician integration, the effects of physician leadership on hospital performance, and the determinants of change among health care organizations, particularly with respect to the role of market and institutional forces. Her articles have examined how hospitals exercise community accountability in the composition, structure, and activity of their governing boards. In the IPPAM Program, Dr. Lopez teaches strategic management, strategic and operational planning, the organization and financing of health services, and health information systems.
Jeanne Ringel, Ph.D. is a RAND economist specializing in health economics, labor economics, and public finance. Her policy areas include economics of tobacco control, substance abuse, the effects of public policies on maternal and child health including mental health, and welfare reform. Currently, Dr. Ringel is a Co-Principal Investigator on a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the role of state-level policy and market characteristics in explaining geographic variation in mental health need and service use among children. In related work funded by NIMH, Dr. Ringel and a colleague estimated total expenditures on mental health for children in the US . This study was the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of national expenditures on mental health services for children since the dramatic growth of managed care in the 1990s. In a recent study she estimated the burden of out-of-pocket mental health expenditures among adults using data from the HealthCare for Communities Project. Dr. Ringel is also currently an investigator on a study funded by NIDA to estimate the social costs of marijuana-use. In particular, she is leading an analysis of the effect of youth marijuana use on educational outcomes. Her other studies of substance abuse include the effect of cigarette smoking during pregnancy on birth outcomes, the relationship between adolescent marijuana use and subsequent labor market outcomes, and the effect of clean indoor air laws and youth access restrictions on adolescent demand for cigarettes. She is also Co-PI on a grant that was recently funded to look at the effect of the number and density of alcohol outlets on problem drinking. In addition, Dr. Ringel has worked on a series of Congressionally mandated projects funded by the Veterans' Administration to develop a methodology that could be used to allocate the VA's health care budget across its regional networks. Much of her work involves program evaluation.
In IPPAM, Dr. Ringel teaches the course on policy and program evaluation.
Thomas D'Agnes, PhD, is an international consultant with over 25 years of experience living and working in Pacific Rim countries, specializing in foreign assistance and development projects. He has worked with the Asian Development Bank, the US Agency for International Development, and other international donor agencies. Specific country experience includes Indonesia, where he spent 10 years based in Jakarta, working on health sector financing and community development projects, four years based in Thailand, four years based in the Philippines, and most recently, Laos, where he has spent the past four years working with the Asian Development Bank both implementing foreign assistance projects and developing the next major ADB loan to the Government of the Lao PDR. Having lived and worked in these countries, he is also able to converse in Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, and Lao. Mr. D'Agnes teaches in several IPPAM courses. The centerpiece of his teaching is in policy seminar where he teaches program design for international development projects and World Bank foreign loan projects. He also teaches macroeconomic policy in the economics course and program evaluation in the evaluation course.
Grace Cheng, MSPH, is Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations, at Cedars-Sinai Health Systems in Los Angeles . Her responsibilities include: conducting market research for development of new health care products, promotion and marketing activities on behalf of the health system and its affiliates, gala and community events to raise the profile of the hospital, and fund-raising and charity activities to raise funds to support the health system's mission. Ms. Cheng has 20 years of experience working in the health care field in Southern California. She is a past president of the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development, which is the national association for professionals in the field of health care planning and marketing. Ms. Cheng teaches the marketing component of an IPPAM course in Strategic and Operational Planning.

Susan Sinclair, MBA, MA, has over twenty years of marketing and management experience in the private sector as well as with government agencies and nonprofits. She has worked with organizations such as Lockheed Martin Corporation, Xerox Corporation, and the US Embassy in Spain. She was with Oracle Corporation for just under three years as Practice Director for Global Business Development working with Oracle management worldwide as head of the Global Land Management & Real Estate Group. She is currently Managing Principal of MARKET ONE, a strategic planning and marketing firm. She currently serves as Managing Principal of MARKET ONE, a firm specializing in strategic planning, marketing, and globalization engagements. Clients include Boeing, Kodak, Sun Microsystems, MeadWestvaco , US Department of Interior, the Government of India, and numerous smaller and medium sized firms worldwide.

Doe Mayer, MA, holds the Mary Pickford Chair and is co-head of the Documentary Production Program at USC's School of Cinema Television where she teaches documentary and fiction filmmaking. She holds a joint appointment with the Annenberg School for Communication where her work is centered on the practical application of communication campaign strategies and designs for social issues.
Professor Mayer has been working in film and television for the past 30 years and has produced, directed and provided technical support for hundreds of productions in the United States and countries such as Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Mexico. Much of this programming has been in the areas of family planning, basic education, health and nutrition promotion, HIV/AIDS prevention, population, and women's issues.

As a consultant, she has designed communication campaigns using media and public outreach on subjects such as encouraging girls to stay in primary school in Malawi , disaster preparedness for volcanic eruptions in Vanuatu , and teaching farmers to put less pesticides on their cabbages in Fiji , where she was a Fulbright Scholar. She has designed and implemented numerous workshops for non-governmental organizations (NGOS) on how to effectively get messages out to their target audiences using media and face to face communication.

She has recently completed a project called Women Connect!, an initiative of the Pacific Institute for Women's Health which is funded through the Annenberg Center for Communication at USC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project seeks to strengthen African women-run NGOS (Non Governmental Organizations) to use communication strategies in media and technology to improve women's health and well being. She also recently co-authored a book on Creative Filmmaking from the Inside Out. She received her BA from New York University , her MA in film production from USC, and a Directing Fellowship at the American Film Institute.
In the IPPAM Program, Professor Mayer co-teaches the elective course on Social Service Communication Campaigns: Theory, Research and Practice.

Michael Cody, Ph.D., is the Director of Doctoral Studies at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, where he has been a professor for 24 years. He has published extensively in the areas of interpersonal social influence, campaigns, and power and compliance. His most recent projects involve the social uses of entertainment education, training adult learners to use new technologies, studying family influences on health beliefs and health change, and tracking the tobacco industry's marketing strategies online and offline. He is the co-author of a book, “ Entertainment Education Worldwide: History, Research, and Practice. ” He examines the effective use of drama, suspense and humor (entertainment) to educate viewers on a range of topics, from adult literacy, safe sex, domestic violence, and so forth. He is also working with the Annenberg Computer Games Project to learn about positive uses of new media technologies such as computer games. In particular, he is studying how skills acquired in the virtual world can transfer themselves to the real world.

Professor Cody works with the Hollywood , Health and Society Initiative at USC's Norman Lear Center . Hollywood , Health & Society is a resource for entertainment professionals looking for credible public health information. The society offers expert briefings for TV show staff, storyline consultations, panel presentations and an annual award for soap operas. Professor Cody recently participated in a TV monitoring pilot project conducted by Hollywood , Health & Society that examines the health messages that make their way to TV audiences. The health-related messages found in popular shows addressed everything from eating habits and exercise to HIV/AIDS, smoking, te en pregnancy, alcoholism and drug addiction.

In the IPPAM Program, Professor Cody co-teaches the course on Social Service Communication Campaigns: Theory, Research and Practice.

Marina Tse was appointed to serve as chief of the Western United States Office of the U.S. Department of Labor, which serves Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada, as well as Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 2006. Currently, she is the member of the Cultural Diversity Advisory Committee for the National Council on Disabilities.

From 2001 to 2005, Ms. Tse served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education as one of the key administrators with the Office of English Language Acquisition, formerly known as the Office of Bi-Lingual Education, meeting the educational needs of 6 million children nationwide. Ms. Tse has been a community activist for more than two decades, helping numerous minority groups. She co-founded the California Multicultural Task Force, which was formed to help address the educational and cultural needs of Los Angeles County's growing Hispanic and Asian communities. She served as an Executive Board member with the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities from 1997 to 2000, and as a member of both the California Special Education Commission and the California Rehabilitation Council. She was also a member of the California State Board of Education and regularly addressed the needs of Hispanic, Asian-American, African-American and disabled students and their parents. She was a Special Education teacher for more than 20 years. Serving as an advocate for special needs and minority children and their parents as a member of a variety of city, county, state and federal boards, she has developed a profound understanding of the needs of minority youngsters.

Ms. Tse graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master's Degree in Special Education. She earned a certificate from Harvard University 's John F. Kennedy School of Government's Women and Power: Leadership in the World program. She has spoken publicly in more than 30 states before professional and government groups associated with education as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) comprised of people from a variety of ethnicities, particularly people from Hispanic and Asian Pacific Islander communities. Ms. Tse speaks and writes English, Mandarin and Cantonese fluently. In IPPAM, she has taught several sessions in program and policy evaluation and policy analysis with particularly reference to educational programs, including the national No Child Left behind Program initiatives.

Charles (Charlie) Lane, PhD is the Associate Vice President of Career and Safety Services at the University of Southern California. In this capacity, he is responsible for administering the University's programs related to employee recruitment and development, emergency planning, and environmental health and safety. Prior to assuming the responsibilities associated with his current position, he worked for the University of Houston , Intermedics, Inc., and Texas Instruments, Inc.

Dr. Lane has diverse academic interests. He received his B.S. degree in Biology from Southwest Baptist University (minors in Mathematics and Chemistry), his M.S. degree from Central Missouri State University , his M.P.H. degree from the University of Texas, and his M.P.A. and D.P.A. degrees from the University of Southern California. Additionally, he holds professional certifications in human resources management (SPHR) and health and safety (CSP).

Dr. Lane's research interests include: (1) the use of structural equation models to predict the process of employee commitment in organizations, (2) the measurement of employee satisfaction, (3) strategic planning in higher education, and (4) leadership styles and effectiveness. His personal interests include running, tennis, golf, mountain climbing, and house renovation.

Joseph S. Wholey, Ph.D., is an SPPD Professor whose work focuses on strategic planning, performance monitoring, and program evaluation to improve the performance and accountability of public and nonprofit organizations. Previously, he served as senior advisor for performance and accountability, with the US General Accounting Office. He was senior advisor to the deputy director for management of the US Office of Management and Budget. He served as deputy assistant secretary for planning and evaluation with the US Department of Health and Human Services and director of Program Evaluation Studies at The Urban Institute. He is author of Organizational Excellence, Evaluation and Effective Public Management, Evaluation: Promise and Performance, and Zero-Base Budgeting and Program Evaluation, and senior author/editor of the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation, Performance and Credibility, and Federal Evaluation Policy. Professor Wholey held elective office for eight years as a member of the County Board of Arlington, Virginia, serving as chairman for three years. He was chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, chairman of the Virginia Board of Social Services, and president of Hospice of Northern Virginia. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. In IPPAM, Professor Wholey sometimes co-teaches the course on Policy and Program Evaluation.

Stuart Schweitzer, PhD, is a Professor at UCLA, where he teaches economics, and is also the Co-Director of the UCLA Research Program in Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at Wayne State University and Georgetown University. He has also worked as a labor economist and has been on the research staff of the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. He served on President Carter's Commission for a National Agenda for the eighties, and has held visiting appointments at Oxford University, CREDES (Paris), ESSEC (Paris), and the Shanghai Medical University. He is an internationally recognized expert on pharmaceutical policy and is the author of a book on the subject.

Elizabeth Graddy, PhD, is Professor of Public Policy in USC's School of Policy , Planning, and Development, and Director of the School's Master in Public Policy. Her expertise is in industrial organization economics, public policy, and quantitative analysis. She is a Faculty Fellow in the School's Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy, and currently serves as a public member on the State of California 's Board of Podiatric Medicine. Dr. Graddy's research focuses on how industry and organizational structure affect performance, with particular emphasis on the role of ownership (public, nonprofit, and for-profit), and how information asymmetry and uncertainty affect institutional design and effectiveness. These interests have led to numerous articles in academic journals that address the structure and performance of a variety of institutions and organizations, including juries and products liability outcomes, licensing boards and regulatory outcomes, and governance structures and service delivery outcomes. Her current work is focused on the structure and performance of healthcare, philanthropic, and nonprofit organizations. In IPPAM, she teaches one module in International Public Policy and Management Seminar.

James Ferris, PhD, Emery Evans Olson Chair in Nonprofit Entrepreneurship and Public Policy (Economics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ). Dr. Ferris has expertise in the economics of the public and nonprofit sectors, public finance and public policy. He has done extensive work on the political economy of local service, public and private (both nonprofit and for-profit) sector dynamics in education and health services, and public sector performance reforms such as competition, decentralization, and privatization. Professor Ferris has been a Visiting Scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis and the Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University and in the Department of Economics at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and a Visiting Fellow and Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Australian National University. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Public Administration Theory and Research. He directs the USC Nonprofit Studies Center. In the IPPAM program, Dr. Ferris teaches in the International Public Policy and Management Seminar on policy instruments to remedy government and market failure, including privatization and other alternatives to public service delivery, and the role of non-government organizations.
Robert Myrtle, DPA, is a Professor in the School of Planning, Policy and Development, where his research and teaching interests include inter-organizational relations, strategic decision making, organizational and management effectiveness. He holds a joint appointment with USC's School of Gerontology and, through his work on long-term care systems, has received grants to study the development of community-based long-term care, regulatory policies affecting the development of long-term care organizations, and the impact of changes in organizational culture on the attitudes and performance of health care workers. Mr. Myrtle teaches management and leadership courses for government officials in Singapore and a number of other countries. He is a commissioner for the Los Angeles County 's Hospital Commission. He has also has served as the Chair of the Board of Health and Human Services for the City of Long Beach, member of the Board of Directors for the Huntington Medical Foundation, and Chairman of the Board for SCAN Health Plan. He has been a consultant to a number of organizations including the National League of Cities, Educational Testing Service, American Association for International Aging, USAID and the United Nations. Mr. Myrtle is the co-author of Public Personnel Administration (Houghton-Mifflin, 1985) and Managing Public Systems: Concepts and Methods (Duxbury Press, 1980), along with articles appearing in Medical Care Review, Public Administration Review, Human Resources Development Quarterly, Health Services Management Research, Policy Studies Review and the Journal of Hospital Marketing . He is the recipient of the Hubert Humphrey Award for the best article of the year appearing in the Journal of Health and Human Services Administration and recipient of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Regents Award. In IPPAM, Mr. Myrtle teaches a module on leadership in the Strategic and Operational Planning.
Peter Robertson, PhD, has been a member of the SPPD faculty since 1989, teaching organizational behavior classes to undergraduate, Masters, and doctoral students. His research and teaching focuses primarily on issues associated with improving the effectiveness of organizations, defined in terms of successively accomplishing their objectives while attending to the various needs of the individuals and communities with whom they interact. In addition to his activities within SPPD, he has collaborated on numerous researches and teaching projects with faculty and students in the Schools of Education, Social Work, and Business. Current research applies "new paradigm" ideas to the design of organizations and the political-economic environment in which they function. For example, recent papers develop a new model of "collaborative organizing" and describe its potential role in the context of sustainable development. Previous research has addressed issues pertaining to inter-organizational collaboration, organizational commitment, the process and outcomes of organizational change, the impact of organizational contexts on participants' behavior and attitudes, and the implementation of school-based management as a mechanism for public school reform. This research has been published in a number of journals and books, including the Academy of Management Journal, Public Administration Review, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Educational Administration Quarterly, the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Research in Organizational Change and Development. Professor Robertson is a member of the Academy of Management, the American Society for Public Administration, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences . He serves on the editorial board or as a reviewer for a number of academic journals in the fields of Organizational Behavior and Public Administration. In IPPAM, he teaches one module in Development of Effective Groups and Organizations.
Shui Yan Tang, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Public Administration Program in the School of Policy , Planning and Development. Dr. Tang's research interests include institutional analysis and design, common-pool resource governance, economic development, and environmental policy. He is the author of Institution and Collective Action: Self-Governance in Irrigation (ICS Press, 1992) and articles in such journals as International Review of Administrative Sciences, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Land Economics, Public Productivity and Management Review, The China Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Public Administration and Development, and World Development. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and Korean Public Administration Review. In the IPPAM program, Dr. Tang teaches in the Public Policy Seminar on topics of governance, building institutions for a capable public sector and federalism and decentralization.
 

D. Phuong ( Phoenix ) Do, M.Phil., is a Doctoral Fellow and policy analyst at RAND . She has worked in Mali for the Peace Corps where she developed water supply and sanitation projects for villages. She has also worked as a civil engineer modeling satellite structures and ground support equipment for Hughes Space and Communications and as part of a research and development team for a start-up software company, D-Analytix, to develop tools for data analyis. Her current RAND projects investigate the causes and correlates of population health disparities, specifically socioeconomic and race/ethnic disparities in health outcomes, with specific attention to the role of neighborhood context on health. In the IPPAM Program, she co-teaches the applied statistics course.

Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Ph.D., is a RAND senior economist who specializes in health economics, labor economics, public finance, and applied econometrics. She is also a co-director of RAND Drug Policy Research Center and faculty research fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her policy areas include alcohol, tobacco and marijuana markets and policies, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and health care policy relating to mental health and addiction. Her recent projects include analyses evaluating the impact of marijuana decriminalization and medicalization on youth marijuana use, youth access laws and their enforcement on youth smoking, the cost-benefit of school-based drug prevention programs, the impact of parity legislation on use of mental health services, and analyses identifying the social cost of marijuana use. In IPPAM, she guest lectures in the Policy and Program evaluation course.

Gary Painter, Ph.D., is an SPPD Professor and has an extensive background in welfare and housing policy, the determinants of educational attainment, and public finance. His research interests include the impact of low-income rental assistance on household decisions to work, to participate in the welfare system, and to make moves to a jurisdiction in order to obtain a higher benefit. He has also studied the determinants of homeownership among various racial/ethnic and immigrant groups. His other interests include the importance of family involvement and neighborhood quality in educational outcomes, the use of state lotteries as a revenue instrument, and the effectiveness of social welfare and development programs on improving the living standards of the poor. He has been published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, Journal of Housing Economics, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Journal of Housing Research, Public Finance and Management, and Industrial Relations. In IPPAM, Professor Painter sometimes teaches an applied economics module in the Public Sector Economics course and cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis in the policy elective.

Koichi Mera, received his PhD in City and Regional Planning from Harvard after obtaining two degrees from the University of Tokyo . He taught economics at Harvard and joined the World Bank to work in the field of urban development. Before joining USC in 1995, he taught as well at the University of Tsukuba, and Tokyo International University in Japan . He has authored 4 books, written over 30 scholarly articles, and lectured in numerous public meetings in Japan and elsewhere. He served as President of the Applied Regional Science Conference, and of the Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development recently. He was Editor of the Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, and is an editorial board member of several academic journals. His fields of specialization include urban and regional development, development assistance policies, the real estate market and land policy in Japan and the rest of East Asia, and the policy-making by governmental organizations in Asia. He is currently the director of Practitioners' Institute and the Principal Investigator of USAID “ Capacity Building for Decentralization in Indonesia ” project.

Jeffrey Wasserman, PhD, is a Senior Policy Researcher at RAND. Dr. Wasserman has over 20 years of experience directing large and complex health services research projects in the areas of health care financing, health promotion and disease prevention, and public health. He currently serves as Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on projects related to measuring the health impact in developing countries of additional investments in diagnostic technologies, evaluating the public health system's ability to prepare for, and respond to, infectious disease outbreaks (including bioterrorist attacks); the heath services safety net; health promotion and disease prevention in the Medicare program; and smoking prevention and control. Recently, Dr. Wasserman led a three-year project on how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could modify its budget allocation mechanism to better serve the health care needs of veterans.
He has published numerous papers and technical reports, as well as co-authored three books (The Costs of Poor Health Habits, Harvard University Press; Tobacco Control Laws: Implementation and Enforcement, RAND; and Combating Teen Smoking: Research and Policy Findings, University of Michigan Press). Dr. Wasserman received his doctorate in public policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School for Policy Studies, where he was a Pew Health Policy Fellow.
 
Han de Vries, M.Sc., M.Phil. is a Doctoral Fellow in policy studies at the Pardee RAND Graduate School . He has led studies on developing a model of the effect of government interventions on innovation in the pharmaceutical market, a study comparing the costs of treating chronic care in Germany and the US , and a study to develop measures of efficiency in health care. His previous studies include an assessment of policy options to stimulate scientific research in the Netherlands , development of an organizational structure for a new Dutch Safety Investigation Board, and the development of reform options for the German health care system. He has worked with private-sector clients, such as Sanofi, Pfizer, and the German Techniker Krankenkasse. His clients have also included various Dutch ministries, Directorates of the European Commission, US government agencies, and international organizations such as the World Bank. Before joining RAND in Santa Monica , he was an analyst with RAND Europe in Leiden , the Netherlands , and Berlin , Germany . Mr. de Vries has an M.S. in health care policy and management from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and an M.Phil. in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
Keon-Hyung Lee, PhD, is a visiting professor from the University of Central Florida. He teaches health care finance and data analysis. Prior to pursuing his doctorate at the University of Southern California, Dr. Lee earned his Master of Public Health from the Yale University School of Medicine, an M.S. in Decision Theory from Stanford University, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Ohio University. Within his primary research interests of health care finance and hospital management, his dissertation develops a hospital-specific case-mix index of different payer groups. This index facilitates an analysis of the manner in which hospital costs and revenues change in relation to hospital competition, managed care penetration, and case mix. Another research project evaluated the failures of hospital nonstructural components during and following a major earthquake. For more than a year, he has been a Resident Consultant for the Rand Corporation.
 
Susan Maerki, MHSA, MAE, is a Senior Consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP. Susan has over 20 years of experience in the health insurance arena, and has broad knowledge of reimbursement mechanisms, managed care delivery systems, government health programs, hospital organization, and information systems design. Susan has been actively involved in researching payment models for the Oregon Health Plan and the TennCare program (Tennessee 's managed care program for low-income persons). She oversaw the cost effectiveness analysis and budget projection model for the Virginia Medicaid program, and has overseen risk assessment and risk adjustment analyses for multiple clients. In her years as an independent consultant, her projects included: Development work with California clients in the counties targeted for managed care in the Medicaid program. These projects included work with community coalitions in development of the program, analysis of FFS utilization and expenditure history, preparation of documents for the Department of Health Services and Knox Keene applications, provider outreach and contract development, and capitation and provider payment development. In addition to her work in managed care consulting in the US, Ms. Maerki has worked internationally in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Ghana.
Carl Serrato, PhD, is Manager of External Research in the National Market Research Department of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. His responsibilities are to analyze external surveys, design research projects, and monitor health care policy and market issues. Specific tasks include assisting with the design and implementation of a market segmentation study; analyzing and reporting results from the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Survey; using consumer research to restructure Kaiser operations; studying Medicare members willingness to tradeoff benefits and premium; studying health plan choice decision making; evaluating determinants of members' decisions to use core versus network obstetrical providers; studying utilization patterns across different segments of KFHP membership; and evaluating high and low performing medical centers to improve quality of service. He previously worked as an economist at two major public policy institutes, RAND and Mathematica Policy and Research, Inc. in Princeton , New Jersey . He lived in Indonesia for 4 years and was head of RAND 's Jakarta office during the fielding of two large surveys: the Indonesian Resource Mobilization Study and the Indonesian Family Life-Survey – Round 1. Dr. Serrato also served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Fund, the World Bank, USAID, and other international organizations on poverty alleviation projects in Indonesia , Myanmar , Thailand , and other Asian countries. He has taught economics at USC and other universities. His policy interests are poverty analysis and policy formulation, education policy, modeling the economic impact of AIDS, cost-effectiveness studies, studies of how individuals and organizations respond to financial and regulatory incentives of government programs, especially with respect to government programs targeted to the poor. Dr. Serrato teaches in the health concentration of IPPAM's Public Sector Economics course.