Roshie Xing
Roshie Xing is studying Mathematical Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She intends to pursue a PhD in Economics to contribute to researching and informing public policy efforts to reduce wealth concentration and socio-economic inequality. Through SUMR, she had the chance to explore some of these issues in the context of the health care sector and also better define her long-term research interests.
Her interest in the intersections of health care and inequality first developed when she volunteered as a student advocate for Save the Children Action Network. In her preparation to lobby for a bill scaling up U.S. involvement in the fight to end preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths globally, she realized both the extent of the crisis and the lack of awareness around the issue. Since then, she has continued to read and inform herself about the health care disparities both in the U.S. and around the world. She is particularly interested in seeing whether the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exposed many of the existing cracks within the American health care and economic infrastructure, will lead to structural changes that will result in a more compassionate system that prioritizes workers and families.
During SUMR, Xing worked on two projects. She spent half of her time working with Dr. Juan Pablo Atal, PhD on a project studying the influences of colonial heritage and culture, as well as health care access and quality, on fertility and children’s health in Africa. Her second project was with Dr. Atul Gupta, PhD on the effects of vertical and horizontal mergers among health care providers on patient care and patient health outcomes. Through the project, they hoped to inform the debate on whether consolidation advocates’ claims of greater efficiency and quality have merit.
Outside of her research, Xing finds peace in playing the flute as a member of Penn Flutes and the Penn Wind Ensemble. She is a contributor and poetry editor for Penn’s feminist magazine, The F-Word Magazine, and is a member of the Undergraduate Economics Society. In her free time, she loves to read, write poetry, passionately debate politics and current events, and goof around with her friends and family.