Ph.D. Job Market Candidates
Several Pardee RAND students and recent alumni are actively pursuing employment opportunities. Prospective employers or executive recruiters are encouraged to contact them directly by email.
To view the profiles of all Pardee RAND students, visit our Students page.
For more information on recruiting at Pardee RAND, please contact our Career Development staff at (310) 393-0411, ext. 6742 or email prgscareers@rand.org.
Gulrez Shah Azhar
An MPH and Community Medicine physician, Gulrez has an interdisciplinary skill-set. He has explored issues of environmental health and climate change in developing countries. He has interned with World Health Organization and is an Aspen Institute fellow. Besides several research papers his opinion articles have been published across various platforms.
Dissertation Topic
Indian Summer: Three Essays on Heatwave Vulnerability, Estimation and Adaptation
Faculty Advisors
Gery Ryan (chair); Raffaele Vardavas; Jaime Madrigano
Olena Bogdan
Olena's research focuses on socio-economic development, international economics, health economics, and cross-disciplinary policy issues. Her dissertation investigated regional economic differences within the United States, China, Italy, and Ukraine. Currently, she studies public health policy interventions in California.
Dissertation
Regional Economic Growth and International Capital Flows: the Case of Ukraine
Faculty Advisors
James Hosek (chair; previously Charles Wolf, Jr.); F. Stephen Larrabee; Edward Keating
Maya Buenaventura
Maya's dissertation is an evaluation of Santa Monica's Homeless Court. At RAND, she works in criminal justice policy and program evaluation. She has collected and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data for evaluations of programs targeting vulnerable populations and justice-involved individuals. Prior to RAND, Maya was a litigator.
Dissertation Topic
Treatment Not Custody: Process and Impact Evaluation of Santa Monica's Homeless Community Court
Faculty Advisors
Sarah Hunter (chair); Matthew Cefalu; James Anderson
Bill Gelfeld
Bill has worked on several international development projects since coming to RAND including an infectious disease vulnerability index, an evaluation of a Gates Foundation family planning project in Africa, a report on Ebola hotspots, affordable housing initiatives in India, and applications of RAND's Food Energy Water Index.
Dissertation Topic
Preventing Deviations from Presidential Term Limits in Low- and Middle-Income Democracies
Faculty Advisors
Nicholas Burger (chair); Christopher Paul; Francis Fukuyama
Carlos Ignacio Gutierrez
Carlos Ignacio's research focuses on the intersection of technology and policy. At RAND, he has worked on projects related to autonomous vehicles, the sharing economy, and studied the effect of HIV monitoring technology on medication adherence. Prior to RAND, he worked as a project manager where he designed, evaluated and assisted in the implementation of federal policies dealing with high added-value private sector development. He has lived in nine countries and is fluent in Spanish.
Dissertation Topic
Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy: A Systematic Review
Faculty Advisors
Dave Baiocchi (chair); Nidhi Kalra; William Welser; John Seely Brown
Jakub P. Hlávka
Jakub conducts research in health economics and technology policy. His dissertation studies novel outcome-based payment models for high-cost therapies, including gene therapy and specialty biologics. His project work addresses health care payment and reform, innovation and technology policy, advanced materials, international security and public-private partnerships.
Dissertation Topic
The Economics of a Cure: Assessing Innovative Payment Models for Breakthrough Pharmaceuticals
Faculty Advisors
Soeren Mattke (chair); Sarah Nowak; Dana Goldman
Crystal Haijing Huang
Crystal's research is in the areas of development economics, behavioral economics and global health. Her dissertation uses a range of causal inference and quantitative methods to examine how three distinct factors – behavioral, informational, and monetary – relate to and impact health decisions and outcomes for HIV in Uganda and South Africa, and obesity in the U.S.
Dissertation Topic
Improving Health Decision-making for Chronic Diseases: Information, Behavioral, and Income Barriers
Faculty Advisors
Sebastian Linnemayr (chair); Roland Sturm; Peter Glick
Lauren Kendrick
Lauren's dissertation research focuses on voluntary environmental policy and agricultural air pollution. At RAND, she has worked on cyber security, early child, and environmental policy projects. She has experience with statistical modeling and simulation, survey analysis, research design evaluation, foresight methods, and climate model data analysis.
Dissertation Topic
Ammonia Emissions from Industrial Hog Farming: Efficacy of Voluntary Reduction Strategies as an Alternative to Regulation
Faculty Advisors
Debra Knopman (chair); John Fritz Raffensperger; Marc Ribaudo
Ashley Muchow
Ashley's research centers on policy that affects low-income and vulnerable populations, with a focus on socioeconomic inequality and its intersection with immigration policy, criminal justice, and education. Her dissertation research examines how modern immigration policy and the diffusion of enforcement to local law enforcement agencies influence social and economic outcomes.
Dissertation Topic
Enforced exclusion: Three essays on the social and economic consequences of modern immigration policy
Faculty Advisors
Lynn Karoly (chair); Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes; Robert Bozick
Claire O’Hanlon
Claire is a health services, economics, and policy researcher experienced in applied quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Her research interests include health care markets and consolidation; aging, long-term care, and the end of life; and emerging health technologies and treatments.
Dissertation Topic
Three Essays on the Impacts of Health Care Consolidation in the United States
Faculty Advisors
Deborah Freund (chair); Chapin White; Stephen Shortell
Julia Pollak
Julia conducts research on labor and behavioral economics, market design, and governance. Her dissertation studies variation in voter turnout across different population groups and explores the effects of politics, state policies, and poverty. Her RAND project work primarily addresses military manpower issues, defense acquisition policy, and military intelligence.
Dissertation Topic
Turnout Inequality: The Role of Politics, Policies, and Poverty
Faculty Advisors
Michael Rich (chair); Katherine Grace Carman; Jennifer Kavanagh
Mahlet Woldetsadik
Mahlet's main research focus is on gender and conflict, intimate-partner violence, vicarious traumatization, and post-conflict reconstruction. She also has research interests and expertise in global health, international development, mental health, and veteran's health. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods, including interviews, psychometrics, and statistical analysis of survey data and geo-coded data sets.
Dissertation Topic
The Long-Term Impact of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence on Survivors and Families: The Case of Northern Uganda
Faculty Advisors
Glenn Wagner (chair); Jeanne Ringel; Ragnhild Nordås
Gabriel Weinberger
Gabriel is studying the implementation, at the local level, of various major changes to California's criminal justice system in how it deals with drug use. These changes include liberalization of marijuana policies, Public Safety Realignment, and Proposition 47. He is interested in how the criminal justice system affects disadvantaged populations.
Dissertation Topic
3 Essays on California's Changes to How Its Criminal Justice System Addresses Drug Use
Faculty Advisors
Rosalie Pacula (chair); Priscillia Hunt; Sarah Hunter
Cameron Wright
Cameron is a security and education researcher experienced in operations research, econometrics, and qualitative methods. At RAND, his research has focused on broad DoD acquisition policies, specific programs, including the F-35, and military logistics. His dissertation uses mixed methods to study college major choices and their relationship to student outcomes.
Dissertation Topic
Choose Wisely: A Study of College Major Choice and Major Switching Behavior
Faculty Advisors
Charles Goldman (chair); Trey Miller; Dermot Forde