Economic and Policy Analysis

Every data collection is unique. I enjoy developing innovative solutions to gather the data that ERG relies on in support of healthier, safer, and more sustainable systems. My role at ERG extends across multiple service areas, allowing me to collaborate with a wide range of clients and colleagues and continually take on new challenges.

A core aspect of my work is leveraging a diverse array of data collection and analytical techniques to craft innovative solutions tailored to our clients’ data and research needs. This often involves delving into new subject areas. I greatly enjoy this process as it feeds my natural curiosity and is very satisfying to deliver products that help improve public health.

Over my many years of work as an economist, I have learned that dialogue with clients, stakeholders, policymakers, and regulators is invaluable for providing information, real-world perspective, and nuance that is not available from any other source. These interactions help ensure that my analyses ring true with interested parties on all sides of an issue.

I always appreciate when our government clients ask us to help them quantify the benefits and costs of actions they are considering. The more complex assignments, such as accurately characterizing behavioral changes under multiple compliance scenarios, put a premium on our creativity and experience.

At ERG, our economic projects often take us into uncharted territory where standard, regularly collected data are few or unavailable and the analytic path to answer our client’s questions is not obvious. This is exactly where I like to be! I find it deeply satisfying to explore new territory, address unique challenges, and use my expertise and creativity to develop approaches that provide meaningful, defensible results.

As an economist, I have come to appreciate that the qualitative context—including co-benefits, benefits distribution, environmental and health impacts, and social and political obstacles—can be as essential to decision-making as the numerical outputs. I enjoy working holistically with my government and community clients, incorporating qualitative and quantitative information from ERG surveys, interviews, and research to determine how best to meet their needs and communicate the results.

The questions agencies need to answer generally are not straightforward. I greatly enjoy using my econometric skills to inform policy decisions and find it very fulfilling to use creative problem-solving in addressing my clients’ most challenging questions.

I love using data to help clients make smarter decisions because it’s where my mix of analytical expertise, passion for digging into details, and creative problem-solving all come together. Whether I’m designing surveys, analyzing responses, or translating findings into action, for me it’s about turning curiosity into clarity and working side by side with clients to build solutions that make programs better.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work with our clients because I believe deeply in their mission. I have always enjoyed statistics and data science, but the critical step in any economic, public health, or survey analysis is telling a broader story that gets to the heart of the client’s research questions. One of the things I value most about ERG is our culture of using our subject matter expertise to think from the client’s perspective so that their broader goals can drive meaningful work.

The world of data collection and analysis revolves around the idea of extracting information from noise. Poorly designed surveys or statistical analyses only increase that noise. My goal in each project is to apply appropriate methods to extract information efficiently. Well-designed surveys should balance meeting a client’s information needs with the need to ensure that respondents understand what is being asked and can then provide that information. While we have an array of complex methods at our fingertips that can readily extract information from large amounts of data, ultimately, we need to explain what’s being done in plain language. I work to clearly communicate complex statistical analysis or survey designs to ensure better understanding of what was done and increase confidence in the results.

I’m particularly drawn to the human dimension of our work. I value gathering input directly from stakeholders through focus groups, interviews, and surveys to help ensure that our work integrates the experiences and perspectives of the people central to the topic or issue we are exploring.

Economic analysis has been my field ever since my early 20s, when I first discovered its complexities, potential, and power. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege to complement that foundation with expertise in survey science and diverse data collection methodologies—tools that have greatly enriched the scope and rigor of my work. At ERG, I’ve had the good fortune to work with great colleagues and clients to research issues and develop solutions for a wide variety of highly consequential environmental and public health questions. Whether designing a nationally representative survey, analyzing real-world data, or integrating administrative datasets, it has been a consistent joy to do work that is not only impactful but also a path of continuous learning and deepening.