Panel 1: Health Services Research on Disparities

Moderator
Claudio Lucarelli, PhD

Associate Professor, Health Care Management, Wharton School
SUMR Mentor

Claudio Lucarelli is an Associate Professor of Healthcare Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the industrial organization of health care markets, with particular interests on international healthcare systems, providers’ incentives, and the provision of health in rural areas. Prior to joining Wharton, professor Lucarelli served as Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Universidad de los Andes in Chile, and was Assistant Professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Lorraine Dean, ScD

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
SUMR 2001

Lorraine Dean has been Assistant Professor in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since January 2016, after being Instructor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine since 2013. Her current work focuses on social and economic determinants of survivorship after cancer and HIV, and is funded through an NIH K01, NIAID R21, NINR R21, and Center for AIDS Research grants. She holds a doctorate in Social Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, funded through a Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award (F31) and a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. Her early career opportunities as an undergraduate at Penn, which she completed in 2003 as a first-generation college student, and as a Leonard Davis Institute Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) Scholar in Health Economics paved the way to a year in Venezuela conducting breast cancer research under the William J. Fulbright Program. Prior to her appointment at Penn, she managed the Tobacco Policy and Control Program at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, coordinating over $14 million of activities in both State- and federally-funded tobacco control initiatives which led to a reduction in smoking for 25,000 residents. ​

Sunita Desai, PhD

Assistant Professor, New York University School of Medicine
SUMR 2007

Sunita Desai is a health economist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine with secondary appointments in the Department of Economics at NYU Stern and Health Policy at NYU Wagner. Her research investigates how policies and incentives shape health care provider behavior and organizational structure. She also examines the role of information and price transparency in consumer decision-making in health care. Her work has been published in leading journals including JAMA and Health Affairs and has been covered by media outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post. She was awarded a 2017-2018 Becker Friedman Institute Health Economics Fellowship.

From 2015 to 2017, Sunita was a Seidman Fellow in Health Policy and Economics at the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. She was a SUMR scholar in 2007. Sunita received her PhD in Health Care Management and Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 and her BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Christina Nguyen

Senior Research Analyst, Harvard University, Medical School, Department of Health Care Policy
SUMR 2013

Christina A. Nguyen is Senior Research Analyst in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and an elected class leader for the Harvard Alumni Association. Her current research focuses on health care quality measurement and delivery systems in the US. She previously worked at the Obama White House, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Institute for Quantitative Social Science. She holds an AB with highest honors from Harvard College, a graduate certificate in Data Science, and an honors certificate from Harvard Business School. She completed her Cordeiro Fellowship in Health Policy at the University of Cambridge. In fall 2019, Christina will join MIT as a PhD student in Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management (TIES) at the Sloan School of Management and as an MIT Presidential Fellow.

Alisha Reginal, MHA

Consultant, Manatt Health
SUMR 2013

Alisha Reginal is a consultant with Manatt Health, an interdisciplinary policy and business advisory practice. She provides quantitative and qualitative research support and strategic advice on healthcare business and policy issues to the full spectrum of healthcare stakeholders. Before joining Manatt, Alisha worked as a project manager for the Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, where she managed multiple complex remote data monitoring projects, improving patient recruitment workflows and ensuring regulatory compliance to improve efficiency and effectiveness for innovation projects’ lifecycles.

As an assistant director of administration, policy, and research for TriMed HealthCare, Alisha streamlined operations for a homecare provider serving major counties in Pennsylvania. She also served as a public policy graduate intern for the National Association of Community Health Centers, focusing on Medicaid payment reform initiatives for health centers. Alisha holds a Master of Health Administration from The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and a BA in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health from Yale University.