Brown School › Academics › PhD in Public Health Sciences › PhD Faculty

PhD Faculty

Students in the PhD in Public Health Sciences program have the opportunity to work with faculty participating in locally, nationally, and globally recognized research and studies on both the Danforth and Medical School campuses. Their areas of interest range from data analysis to community outreach to AI modeling for positive health outcomes. Learn more about our faculty community and how you can be a part of building a better present and future.

Browse Our PhD Faculty

Filter: Health Policy

Abigail Barker

Abigail Barker

Research Associate Professor

  • 314-935-3513
  • arbarker@wustl.edu

Abigail Barker is the faculty lead for data and methods at the The Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research at the Institute for Public Health. Her role includes helping social science and clinical researchers add cost and cost-effectiveness analyses to their work to increase policy relevance, as well as creating data visualizations to allow stakeholders to interactively understand the tradeoffs of various health policy choices.
Derek Brown

Derek Brown

Associate Professor

  • 314-935-8651
  • dereksbrown@wustl.edu

Derek Brown’s research focuses on costs, access to care, quality, and disparities among Medicaid populations—including physician payment, housing instability, and child maltreatment. He also uses discrete choice experiments to analyze preferences for health care and outcomes, such as screening and vaccination. His goal with this work is to improve valuation of health outcomes and policies and to promote better economic evaluation of public health policies.
Su-Hsin-Chang

Su-Hsin Chang

Associate Professor of Surgery

  • 314-862-8623
  • chang.su-hsin@wustl.edu

Dr. Chang is an applied econometrician and a health economist. Dr. Chang’s research focuses on health and economic consequences of obesity and surgical treatments of obesity. Her research uses economic and econometric/statistical modeling to evaluate program and treatment effects. Dr. Chang’s research areas include treatment effect and policy evaluation; cost-effectiveness analysis; meta-analysis; and comparative effectiveness.
Todd Combs

Todd Combs

Research Assistant Professor

  • 314-935-3731
  • toddcombs@wustl.edu

Todd Combs' research interests include health and social policy, dissemination and implementation science, and systems science. Much of his research focuses on policies that affect the built environment to promote behavioral change. Combs currently leads or works on several projects, including: Advancing Science & Practice in the Retail Environment (ASPiRE), which uses agent-based modeling to test the potential impact of retail tobacco policies; and the evaluation of the Washington University Institute for Clinical & Translational Sciences, which focuses on the benefits of membership and collaboration in the large-scale research initiative.
Elizabeth Dodson

Elizabeth Dodson

Research Assistant Professor

  • 314-935-0124
  • edodson@wustl.edu

Elizabeth Dodson researches ways in which policy can facilitate healthy decision-making around physical activity and obesity prevention. Her work examines the effectiveness of policies in specific settings (e.g., schools, worksites) to increase physical activity. She also studies the policy process, including the use of research evidence by policymakers and the most effective ways to communicate research evidence to policymakers.
Amy Eyler

Amy Eyler

Professor

  • 314-935-0129
  • aeyler@wustl.edu

Amy Eyler conducts research to advance the study of policies related to physical activity and obesity, as well as broader policy issues in public health. In addition to serving as deputy director of the Prevention Research Center in St. Louis, she co-directs the Policies for Action Child Health Weight Hub. This research hub is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to identify policies, laws, and regulations to build a culture of health, focusing on the implementation of nutrition and physical activity policies.