RAND Health Care Organizational Structure

Leadership

Peter Hussey

Vice President

Peter Hussey is vice president of RAND Health Care and a professor at the RAND School of Public Policy. His research focuses on innovations in health care payment and delivery. His portfolio of current research projects includes bundled payment, episode-based performance measurement, patient-centered medical homes, care coordination, clinical decision support, and health care efficiency measurement. He received his Ph.D. in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Sangeeta C. Ahluwalia

Associate Director

Sangeeta Ahluwalia is associate director of RAND Health Care and a senior policy researcher at RAND who leads studies to improve access and quality of palliative care, as well as to enhance diagnostic safety across health care settings. Ahluwalia is an experienced qualitative researcher and a fellow of the NIMH/VA Implementation Research Institute. She received her Ph.D. in health policy and M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley; and her M.P.H from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Claudia McCowan

Operations Director

Claudia McCowan is director of operations for RAND Health Care and associate director of Research Financial Operations. McCowan has a background in process improvement and project management (she has held a PMP certification through the Project Management Institute), as well as financial planning and analysis. McCowan received her M.B.A. from the Keller Graduate School of Management.

Programs

Three programs focus on long-standing core areas of RAND Health Care policy research expertise: access and delivery; payment, cost, and coverage; and quality measurement and improvement.

Access and Delivery

Jeanne Ringel

Director, Access and Delivery

Addresses issues related to access to care, including:

organization and delivery of care, including innovative delivery models such as integrated primary and behavioral health care
health information technology
health care workforce
disparities in health care use and access

Payment, Cost, and Coverage

Christine Eibner

Director, Payment, Cost, and Coverage

Focuses on issues related to payment, cost, and coverage, including:

provider payment
health insurance coverage
health insurance benefits
competition in health care markets

Quality Measurement and Improvement

Carrie Farmer

Director, Quality Measurement and Improvement

Focuses on issues related to quality measurement and improvement, including:

quality measurement (including patient experience)
quality improvement
comparative effectiveness of medical treatments

RAND Health Care Chairs

Ian Coulter

Samueli Institute Chair in Policy for Integrative Medicine

Ian Coulter is a senior health policy analyst at RAND, where he holds the Samueli Institute Chair in Policy for Integrative Medicine. He is a professor at the UCLA School of Dentistry and a research professor at the Southern California University of Health Sciences. Coulter has more than 20 years of experience conducting both qualitative and quantitative research on chiropractic and has authored or coauthored more than 40 articles and two books.

Cheryl Damberg

Distinguished Chair in Health Care Payment Policy

Cheryl Damberg is a senior principal researcher at RAND, where she holds the Distinguished Chair in Health Care Payment Policy, and is a professor at the RAND School of Public Policy. Damberg has more than 25 years of experience in the areas of health economics, quality measurement and reporting, and the use of financial incentives to improve cost and quality.

Christine Eibner

Paul O'Neill Alcoa Chair in Policy Analysis

Christine Eibner is a senior economist at RAND, where she holds the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Chair in Policy Analysis, and is director of RAND COMPARE as well as a professor at the RAND School of Public Policy. Eibner has more than a decade of experience in the areas of health care policy, health economics, and health care reform.

Marc Elliott

Distinguished Chair in Statistics

Marc Elliott is a senior statistician at RAND, where he holds the Distinguished Chair in Statistics. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the first recipient of its Mid-Career Award (Health Policy Section). Elliott has more than 30 years of experience in statistics and has published more than 490 peer-reviewed articles. In 2023, Elliott was named one of the world’s 100 most-cited social scientists by Research.com. In 2025, Elliott was ranked #1 in the World in Patient Experience by ScholarGPS.

Bob Brook

Distinguished Chair in Health Care Services

Robert H. Brook holds the Distinguished Chair in Health Care Services at RAND, where he previously served for 19 years as vice president and director of RAND Health. He led the Health and Quality Group on the $80 million Health Insurance Experiment and was co-principal investigator on the Health Services Utilization Study. He was the co-principal investigator on the only national study that has investigated, at a clinical level, the impact of diagnosis-related groups on quality and outcome of acute hospital care.