Meet The Team

Kathryn is the founding director of the Center for Translational and Policy Research on Precison Medicine (TRANSPERS) in the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is also a professor of health economics and health services research in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at UCSF, with additional appointments in the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Kathryn is a health services researcher and health economist who focuses on issues around access, quality, and value of new technologies. Her work spans multiple disciplines, including basic, clinical and social sciences, and brings together leading experts in academia, industry, healthcare, payers, and government. Her pioneering research on the application of health services research to personalized medicine has revealed insights on how to bridge the gap between emerging technologies and their use in the clinic. Her particular interests are in coverage and reimbursement, decision-making, evidence synthesis, economic evaluation, and policy analysis for precision medicine.

James is a Senior Researcher in the Health Economics Research Centre at the University of Oxford. He primarily works on health economics projects in the area of genomic testing, including economic evaluations and stated preference studies. This work spans multiple clinical specialties, including cancer (chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, bowel cancer), rare diseases, infection control practice, screening and inflammatory bowel disease. His DPhil (PhD) work investigated issues related to the economic analysis of genomic diagnostic technologies for multifactorial genetic diseases in the UK NHS, based on a study evaluating genomic testing in haematological cancers. Alongside this academic work, James curates the Health Economics and Genomics blog.

Deborah is a Professor, University of Calgary and Scientific Director at the Alberta Children Health Research Institute. She is a health economist and health services researcher leading a program of applied research using patient preferences, patient engagement and simulation modeling methods. She leads the health economics, socioeconomic benefits, patient preferences and patient engagement activities for several national and international research programs (funded by CIHR and/or Genome Canada) in precision health and patient-oriented research to develop health economic tools and approaches to evaluate outcomes: 1) UCAN CAN-DU (Understanding Childhood Arthritis Network Canada-Netherlands), 2) UCAN CURE (Precision Decisions for Childhood Arthritis) 3) SOLVE Care4Rare Canada; 4) TIGeR (Translational Implementation of Genomics for Rare diseases), and 5) IMAGINE Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Chronic Disease Network (Inflammation, Microbiome, and Alimentation: Gastro-Intestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects, CIHR SPOR) on inflammatory bowel disease and the microbiome. She is an active member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) as the Past President, Board of Directors, Chair of the Dynamic Simulation Modeling Applications in Health Care Delivery Research Task Force and as a member of the Patient Preferences and the Optimization Methods Task Force and co-author of related ISPOR Task Force Reports. She has also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) and is a member of the HTAi Patient Preferences Working Group.

Dean is a Senior Scientist within Cancer Control Research, BC Cancer and the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC), and an Associate Professor, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia. Dean’s research focuses on improving methods to estimate  preference-based utility, with applications to genetic and genomic technologies and the ‘value of genomic knowledge’ i.e. how genes play a role in our personal lives and how publics value and trade between benefits and risks when making decisions to undergo genomic testing. He incorporates this person-centered evidence into economic models that answer questions of value for money. Dean’s contributions to health economics include publications in the areas of econometric analysis of discrete choice data, incorporating willingness to pay into probabilistic decision analytic models, and combining insights from experimental design and behavioral economics to improve the statistical efficiency of discrete choice models. His applied work consists of economic evaluations alongside clinical trials and machine learning methods to generating synthetic control cohorts.

Sarah is an associate professor and university lecturer in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, Medical Sciences Division. Sarah joined the Health Economics Research Centre (HERC) in January 2003 and has developed a research program within HERC on the economics of genetic and genomic technologies. Of particular interest are the economics of translating genomic high-throughput technologies from research into clinical practice, in both cancer and cardiovascular disease. Sarah's other interests include costing methodology and trial-based evaluations in the areas of eye disease, blood transfusion, cardiac surgery and surgery for obesity.

Kurt is an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School whose research focuses on the medical, behavioral, and economic impact of integrating genomic tools into clinical and research settings. He has been an investigator on numerous high-profile NIH-funded studies of genomic information disclosure. His published work has not only provided some of the earliest insight about the implications of population genomic screening for health systems, providers, and patients, but also about the best methods for examining these issues. Kurt addresses these issues by focusing on three interrelated questions: 1) How do patients and physicians respond, behaviorally and psychologically, to information generated from emerging genomic technologies like whole genome sequencing? 2) What is the healthcare service and economic impact of integrating genomics into the everyday practice of medicine? 3) How can programs be improved to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of genomic testing? The answers to these questions are essential as healthcare providers and policymakers make decisions about how to offer and support new genomic services.

Ilias is an Associate Professor in Health Economics at the University of Melbourne and the Health Economics Lead of Australian Genomics. His work focuses on exploring the value and cost-effectiveness of genomic technologies using health economic and discrete choice modelling. Ilias has been a successful co-applicant in research grants worth over AU$50 million, and his work has been published in top-tier journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Global Health, Genetics in Medicine, and Value in Health. He provides advice on the prioritization of genomics and genomics research internationally and coordinates the University of Melbourne Health Economics Group, which a cross-faculty network of over 50 health economists.

Jeroen is Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at UCSF. Jeroen is a senior member of the TRANSPERS team and working, primarily as a methodologist, at the intersection of evidence synthesis, biostatistics, and health economics. Jeroen has 15 years of research experience and has led or supervised numerous projects to understand the value of healthcare technologies. Prompted by the challenges encountered in applied research projects, he has performed methodological research. Notable contributions are the development of novel statistical methods to overcome the typical challenges in model-based cost-effectiveness evaluations characterized by gaps in the evidence base and complex evidence structures. Furthermore, Jeroen led initiatives to develop guidance for consumers and producers of network meta-analysis studies. He has promoted a more transparent and credible approach to model-based health economic evaluations and led the development of open-source simulation models to illustrate its feasibility. Furthermore, Jeroen has been involved in the ongoing development of an R software package to develop simulation models for health economic evaluations. His current research interests are the clinical and economic value of precision medicine, incorporating novel elements of value and health disparities in health economic modeling studies, and statistical methods for evidence synthesis.

Tara is an Assistant Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine and an Investigator at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts Medical Center. Tara is recognized for her expertise in investigating the preferences of patients, caregivers, and other stakeholders in the health care decision making process and incorporating these values into cost-effectiveness evaluations. Tara has a particular interest in estimating the value of pediatric interventions, including genomic sequencing and gene therapies.  

Maarten is professor and Chair of Cancer Health Services Research in the University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research and the Centre for Health Policy of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. He also maintains a position as a Health Technology Assessment professor at the University of Twente (Netherlands) and is an honorary professorial fellow in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. His international work in Europe, Canada and Australia focuses on the health economics and health services implications of personalized medicine, including research on drug treatment sequencing and the use of complex genomic sequencing. He has been a leader in projects investigating the clinical use of liquid biopsies in cancer management and the use of whole-genome sequencing in NSCLC and blood cancers. He is a health economics (co-) lead in projects developing prediction models in prostate cancer, an Australian program estimating economic impact of new cancer treatments, and in the Canadian-Dutch study investigating optimal and cost-effective treatment pathways in juvenile arthritis patients using genomics and artificial intelligence. He chairs the VCCC Value-Based Healthcare Program, sits on the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee and is a member of numerous (inter-) national advisory boards related to health services research, clinical governance, and cancer management and innovation.

Geert is an Associate Professor in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and currently head of the HTA department at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. In addition, he is member of the steering group of The Health care INnovation Centre (THINC.) at the UMC Utrecht and an active member of the editorial board of PharmacoEconomics – Open. Geert has experience in pharmaceutical, diagnostic and medical device related HTA assessments. His research program focusses on (early) economic evaluation of biomedical innovations. He has extensive experience in assessing added value of genomic technologies in both rare disease and oncology and is involved in several national and international working groups discussing the added value of genomic technologies. He has collaborated on numerous previous and current grants from the Dutch government on this topic. One of his professional goals is to develop methodologies adequately reflecting added value of genomic technologies.

Hadley is a health economist and a scholar in the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genomics. She studies clinical, patient-centered, and economic outcomes of genomic medicine, primarily for newborn and pediatric patient populations. The goal of her research program is to inform decision making by clinicians, patients and families, and health care systems to establish efficient and ethical implementation of genomic technologies in clinical care. She uses a variety of survey, economic evaluation, and health services research methods in her work. She is particularly interested in measurement of outcomes of genomic medicine, development and application of tools to measure utility in clinical genomics, and assessment of family-level impacts of genomic sequencing on health care utilization, costs, and well-being. She received a career development award from the National Human Genome Research Institute to study the family-level utility of pediatric genomic sequencing, and she has been actively involved in several large-scale NIH-funded research studies in genomics, such as the Clinical Sequencing Evidence Generating Research Consortium (CSER) and the BabySeq Project. Her research has been published in high-impact journals including JAMA Pediatrics, Nature Genetics, The American Journal of Human Genetics, and Genetics in Medicine. Hadley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, where she is affiliated with the Center for Health Care Research in Pediatrics (CHeRP) and the Precision Medicine Translational Research Center (PROMoTeR). She earned her PhD in Public Health (Health Economics track) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and completed her postdoctoral training as a Health Policy Fellow in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine.

Wendy is a Senior Scientist, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, and Affiliate Scientist, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (IC/ES). She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Economic Evaluation and Technology Assessment in Child Health. In 2007 Wendy founded TASK (Technology Assessment at Sick Kids), where she and her team conduct research applying health economic methods to child health with a focus on genomics and neurodevelopmental disorders. She and her team maintain the PEDE database, a user-friendly online database of pediatric economic evaluations published since 1980 used by HTA agencies around the world. She chairs the Ontario Genetic Testing Advisory Committee which makes funding recommendations on emerging genetic testing technologies for Ontario. Her book, Economic Evaluation in Child Health was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

Deirdre is a Senior Health Economist within Cancer Control Research at BC Cancer. Her work focuses on improving the reliability and uptake of real-world evidence to inform decision-making for genomic technologies across Canadian health systems. She uses quasi-experimental study designs alongside machine learning to facilitate comparative outcomes assessments for precision medicine. Deirdre holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Victoria and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, minoring in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of British Columbia. She is a co-investigator in the Canadian Network for Learning Healthcare Systems and Cost-Effective ‘Omics Innovations (CLEO) and the Precision Oncology Evidence Development in Cancer Treatment (PREDiCT) program, a member of the Terry Fox Research Institute Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network’s (TFRI MOHCCN) Health Technology Assessment Working Group, and co-founded the International Health Economics Association’s Special Interest Group in the Economics of Genomics and Precision Medicine.

Michael has managed and conducted research with investigators for over 20 years in varying organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Public Health Genomics, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s Technical Evaluation Center, and Bayer Diagnostics. His research spans a variety of disciplines, including clinical and social sciences, in the academic, government, and industry sectors. He has extensive expertise in genomic laboratory medicine, evidence-based reviews of molecular-based testing, precision medicine, and research program management. 

Patricia is the Executive Director at Deverka Consulting, LLC where she focuses on helping biotechnology companies and start-ups develop evidence to support payer coverage and clinical adoption of innovative technologies. Her most recent projects have focused on breakthrough tests and drugs focused on population genomic screening, cancer and ultra-rare disorders. Prior to starting her consulting practice, she has worked in the fields of health economics and outcomes research in both non-profit and for-profit settings as a researcher, educator, consultant, and department head. She has extensive experience with drug and diagnostic product development, reimbursement planning, cost- effectiveness analysis, and bioethical issues surrounding the use of new technologies. While working in academia and several non-profit firms, she has participated in numerous NIH-funded studies to evaluate policy barriers to clinical integration of new genomic technologies, and has published extensively on strategies to promote evidence generation and data sharing. She has a medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh and is board certified in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health. She also has a master’s degree in bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania and completed a policy fellowship at Duke University’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.

Julia is the Director and Co-Founder, Center for Business Models in Healthcare, a practice of Executive Frameworks, Ltd, a health services research organization focused on researching, developing and implementing innovative models for collaborative care delivery, adoption of medical and care innovation, and reimbursement. She is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor, TRANSPERS, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of California San Francisco, and Assistant Adjunct Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. Julia’s research is focused on the area of precision medicine insurance coverage and reimbursement, with an emphasis on payer coverage decision-making. In collaboration with TRANSPERS, she has conducted innovative primary research with the largest US private payers on factors and criteria of coverage for novel genomic technologies since 2007. The research has focused on a spectrum of relevant diseases (e.g., cancer, prenatal genetic disorders, pediatric developmental and neurologic disorders) and clinical settings (e.g., hereditary syndrome risk assessment in asymptomatic populations and disease management setting).