Alumni

Julia Lawhorn, Communications and Project Coordinator

Julia Lawhorn joined the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics in January 2017 as CHPRE’s Communication and Project Coordinator, to assist in connecting the policy and research worlds to the benefit of both. While providing daily coordination and oversight support to the CHPRE Director and Research Faculty, Julie manages center and grant funds, purchasing and website content as well as CHPRE’s liaison to the GMU Office of Sponsored Programs and Institutional Review Board. Julie comes to us from LearningRx in Fairfax, a business that provides cognitive therapy, otherwise known as Brain Training. Prior to raising her three children, Julie was Manager, Government and Industry Affairs for Sterling Winthrop, a pharmaceutical company based in New York that has since partnered with Elf Sanofi is and now known as Sanofi Aventis. Julie earned her B.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In 1986

Meng-Hao Li, Graduate Research Assistant

Meng-Hao Li is a Graduate Research Assistant for The Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics and a PhD student in Public Policy at George Mason University. Prior to entering George Mason University, he worked as a research specialist at Yuan Ze University and University of Illinois at Chicago for more than 10 years. His previous research work principally involved in grant proposal writing, program evaluation, survey administration, and data analysis. His current interests are in health policy, translational science policy, and social network analysis. He received a B.A. in Psychology from Chung Yuan Christian University in 2000, a M.I. in Social Informatics from Yuan Ze University.

Molly Robinson, Graduate Research Assistant

Molly Robinson is a graduate student studying Health Care Administration, Health Systems Management at George Mason University. After graduating with a Bachelor's of Science from James Madison University, she spent a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA* at program within the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. Then, she spent a few months in Brussels, Belgium before finding her way back to the D.C. metropolitan area where she worked at a health care association, AABB, before starting a Health Care Administration Residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in summer 2017. India.

Sriteja Burla, Graduate Research Assistant

Sriteja Burla is a Masters student in Economics at George Mason University and a Ph.D Economics aspirant. He works on the CareFirst’s Patient Centered Medical Home program evaluation project under the leadership of Len Nichols, Alison Cuellar, and Lorens Helmchen. His research interests include Economics of Health, Political Economy, microeconometrics. Prior to coming to GMU, he has worked as a research associate at the Foundation for Democratic Reforms, a think-tank and scientific research-resource center for studying, formulating and promoting fundamental reforms in political, electoral and governance spheres in India. He also holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani University, India.

Brad Kells is currently a Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics and a PhD student in Economics at George Mason University.  He works under Len Nichols on the evalulation of the CareFirst Patient Centered Medical Home program.  His research interests include health policy, decision-making under uncertainty, and applied microeconometrics.  Prior to coming to GMU, he received a B.S. in Economics at Michigan State University.

Farhan Fahim, Graduate Research Assistant

 

 

Farhan Fahim is a GMU doctoral student in the Health Informatics track. Prior to joining the doctoral program, Farhan worked in the Healthcare industry for a diverse set of companies in ePrescribing solution, life science and startup space. Farhan has recently presented at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting on Effects of Living Arrangements on Well-Being of Community Dwelling Older Adults. Farhan’s research interest includes aging population, predictive analytics, machine learning and emerging healthcare technology policies such as New York’s I-STOP program. Farhan holds a MBA degree in Healthcare from the Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Arizona.

 

Reyhaneh Mogharab Nia, Graduate Research Assistant

Reyhaneh Mogharab Nia  Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics and a PhD student in Health Services Research with a concentration in Knowledge Discovery and Health Informatics at George Mason University. Prior to coming to GMU, she received a B.S. in Computer Science at University of Tehran and M.S. in Computer Science at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Sachin Garg, Graduate Research Assistant

Sachin Garg, Graduate Research Assistant

Sachin Garg  Ph.D. student at George Mason University’s School of Policy, Government & International Affairs and a Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics (CHPRE). He researched the role of Big and Open Data in International Development and how it may potentially impact healthcare, especially in the context of economic development. Sachin is trained as an engineer and was working in the Information Technology in various capacities prior to joining the PhD program. He holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Allahabad, India.

Maryam Mohammad, Graduate Research Assistant

Maryam Mohammad, Graduate Research Assistant

Maryam Mohammad  Masters Student at George Mason University in the Health and Medical Policy program. Her research interests include public and global health issues, specifically in U.S national security through global disease detection. She attained her Bachelors Degree in Health Administration and Policy from GMU. Under the supervision of Dr. Len Nichols, Maryam was working on the SIM project.


Kyung Min Lee, Graduate Research Assistant

Kyung Min Lee  Ph.D. graduate at George Mason University's School of Public Policy and a former Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics (CHPRE). His research interests included Health Policy, Labor Policy, Applied Micro-Econometrics, and Program Evaluation. Under the supervision of Dr. Len Nichols, he worked on the Virginia healthcare payment reform project with a focus on collecting data and building statistical models to analyze healthcare cost variations by various healthcare conditions. He holds a master in Public Policy from George Mason University.

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Stephen P. Petzinger, Graduate Research Assistant

Stephen P. Petzinger   Has completed first year as a Master’s student; was nominated for a David A. Winston Health Policy Scholarship; and his undergraduate capstone project, Globalization and the Resurgence of Pertussis in the United States, was accepted for presentation at the Public Health Systems and Services Research (PHSSR) Keeneland Conference in Lexington, KY, and won the Robert T. Hawkes Award for Best BIS 490 Project (Bachelor of Individualized Studies award for best capstone project).  Had the pleasure of working for Dr. Nichols on multiple projects, including CareFirst, RWJF-Fairfax County, and ACA premium database, in addition to multiple other grant proposals.

He currently holds a position within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a Program Examiner in the Health Division.  He will be engaged in analysis, planning, and policy formulation to improve programmatic quality, efficiency, and financial management within the Public Health Branch.

Nicole Bruenn, Office Assistant

Nicole Bruenn, Graduate Research Assistant

Nicole Bruenn  is a recent Honor's College graduate with a B.S. degree in Health Administration and Policy from George Mason University. She worked as the office assistant at CHPRE in 2015. During her time here she redesigned the Center’s website and created a monthly internal newsletter. Over the past five years, Nicole has accumulated a wide range of experiences in the healthcare field. She is currently living in New York where she hopes to work within a hospital system and attend graduate school.

Robert 'Tyler' Braun, Graduate Research Assistant

Tyler Braun  worked in CHPRE from the years 2012 to 2014. He assisted Dr. Len Nichols on Virginia's State Innovation Model (SIM) grant and aligning payment reform within the Commonwealth. Presently, he attends the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University and is pursuing a PhD in healthcare policy and research. Jointly, while pursuing his PhD, he assists DMAS in their analytic department, researching Virginia's Medicaid population. His research interests include healthcare supply-side economics, payment reform, and econometric modeling.

Shaun Walker, Graduate Research Assistant             

Shaun Walters   now works for a Chicago health system doing informatics research and clinical analytics. Developing data pipelines from the EMR into reporting and analysis tools. Specifically he helps take the clinical data that the doctors capture at the point of care using an EPIC EMR and distill it into clinical intelligence that the doctors and administrators can use for research, patient care, and operational purposes.

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