Alumni News & Announcements

Alum: How Would a Public Option on Health Insurance Affect Costs and Coverage?
May 28, 2020
Interest in a government-sponsored health insurance plan with publicly determined provider rates is growing. An analysis by Jodi Liu (cohort '12) and RAND colleagues looked at four such "public option" plans and found that lower provider payment rates would lower premiums. But the impact on enrollees would also depend on tax credits, and changes to the number of uninsured would be small.
Alum and Prof Present Options for Designing a Public Option
May 28, 2020
State and federal policymakers are considering adding state-backed public options to the individual market in an effort to expand health coverage and improve affordability. Alum Jodi Liu (cohort '12) and Prof. Christine Eibner analyzed what would happen if public options became available in U.S. health insurance exchanges.
Alum and Prof: Emergency COVID-19 Aid Helps College Students with Food and Housing
May 26, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded the pool of cash-strapped college students, but many were already struggling. Alum Lindsay Daugherty (cohort '05) and Prof. Drew Anderson say the crisis could draw attention to food and housing insecurity among college students, and give college leaders a chance to consider how to address these needs more systematically over the long-term.
Alum: North Korean Provocations, Not Denuclearization
May 8, 2020
Kim Jong-un's reappearance raises questions about the course of U.S.–North Korea relationships in the coming year, writes Bruce Bennett (cohort '75). What should we expect? What can we learn from the past?
The Serious Side of Gaming: Q&A with Yuna Wong
May 8, 2020
Alum Yuna Wong (cohort '00), codirector of RAND's Center for Gaming, didn't expect to make gaming a focus of her career. In this interview, she discusses what drew her to the field, what makes a good wargame, and her latest research on the dangers of putting too much trust in artificial intelligence.
Alum and Prof Evaluate 24/7 Sobriety Program at Individual Level
May 7, 2020
24/7 Sobriety combines frequent alcohol testing with swift, certain, and modest sanctions for those who test positive for alcohol or miss a test. Alum Greg Midgette and Prof. Beau Kilmer used an instrumental variables approach for this study and found 24/7 reduced the probability a participant was rearrested or had probation revoked at 12 months by 49%.
A Natural Experiment to Test the Effect of Sanction Certainty and Celerity on Substance-Impaired Driving: North Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program
May 7, 2020
Over half of participants ordered to abstain from substance use complete 24/7 Sobriety without a detected substance use event. At the county level, the program is associated with a 9% reduction in substance-impaired driving arrests.
Alum: Don't Make the Pandemic Worse with Poor Data Analysis
May 6, 2020
The need for immediate answers in the face of severe public health and economic distress may create a temptation to relax statistical standards, write David Groves (cohort '01) and five fellow codirectors of RAND's Methods Centers. But urgency should not preclude expert analysis and honest assessments of uncertainty. Mistaken assumptions could lead to counterproductive actions.
Alum: Protecting the U.S. Supply on Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles
May 6, 2020
Bonnie Triezenberg (cohort '14) writes that her recent RAND report (with student Moon Kim, '18) on the global heavy lift launch market highlights the potential for a near term shortage of launch vehicles. An inability to launch U.S. defense and intelligence satellites in times of need could compromise national security.
Alum Jeremy Ghez Discusses His "Toolbox for Managers"
Apr 30, 2020
"If it wasn’t the pandemic, it would have been something else. Unless you accept the need for constant evolution and even reinvention, you’re unlikely to do well,” said Jeremy Ghez (cohort '06) in a Q&A with the website Poets&Quants about his recent book, Architects of Change: Designing Strategies for a Turbulent Business Environment. Ghez is a professor of economics and decision sciences at HEC Paris.
The Impact of the Air Force's Space Launch Acquisition Decisions
Apr 28, 2020
How could potential U.S. Air Force decisions in the near term affect domestic launch providers and the market in general? New launch market forecasts and vignettes illuminate potential strategies for U.S. firms.
Alum Comments on the High Rate of Latinos with COVID-19
Apr 27, 2020
"We know this happens. We've seen this before,” said Leo Morales (cohort '95) about the fact that Latino patients are testing positive for COVID-19 at twice the rate of white patients. Morales, co-director of the Latino Center for Health at the University of Washington School of Medicine, was interviewed by his local NPR station about why this might be the case.
Alum Proposes Next Steps on the Return to Normalcy
Apr 27, 2020
"It is natural to start thinking about what it might take to return to normalcy," writes Loren Yager (cohort '87). "Unfortunately, these decisions are vastly more complex than the stay at home orders because there is no 'one size fits all' strategy."
Multimedia
Alum Examines 7 Possible Outcomes of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Apr 22, 2020
If not two states, then what? Shira Efron (cohort '11), lead author of the Israel Policy Forum report “In Search of a Viable Option,” joined her coauthor to discuss seven potential outcomes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict evaluated in the study.
Alum Examines Impacts of Segregation on Obesity Risk Among Hispanic Americans
Apr 22, 2020
The relationship between segregation and health for Hispanics is not uniform within a metropolitan area, according to research by D. Phuong "Phoenix" Do (cohort '00). Immigrants and U.S.-born Hispanics living in segregated neighborhoods have different risks of obesity depending on poverty level.
Alum Reviews Inexpensive Options to Mitigate Pandemic Risk
Apr 21, 2020
A year before the COVID-19 pandemic began, David Manheim (cohort '12) examined interventions that could significantly reduce the impact of a large-scale pandemic by reducing transmission, reducing exposure, reducing impact for those infected, and increasing large scale resilience.
Alum Reports Findings of Early Tests: 4% of L.A. County Adults Have Antibody
Apr 21, 2020
An ongoing study led by Neeraj Sood (cohort '99) found that only 4 percent of the adult population of Los Angeles County has been infected with the novel coronavirus, "which means we are very early in the epidemic, and many more people in L.A. County could potentially be infected."
Alum Discusses Importance of Business Innovation in Pandemic Response
Apr 20, 2020
"We always have a full pipeline of projects that we're working on for innovation," said alum Jamie Gayton, (cohort '06) executive vice president of PenFed Credit Union, about his organization's response to COVID-19. "Innovation is the lifeblood of a credit union, it's what keeps us going into the future."
Multimedia
Alum: Elections and International Affairs in the Time of Coronavirus
Apr 17, 2020
In a roundtable discussion titled "Korea on the World Stage," Myong-Hyun Go (cohort '04), a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, explored a range of issues that Korea is facing, including COVID-19, the general election of 2020, and the ROK-U.S. alliance.
Alum Urges Congress to Include IT Modernization Funding in Future Rescue Bills
Apr 17, 2020
"The COVID-19 pandemic has created a significant strain on many of the federal, state, and local government resources across the United States that people depend on every day," said alum Gordon Bitko (cohort '02), senior vice president of policy, public sector at the Information Technology Industry Council. ITI was one of five tech trade groups that signed an open letter to Congress.