Trainees

Meet our current trainees

Luke Aldridge
Current T32 Pre-Doctoral Trainee

Luke is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The goal of his research is to expand access to and strengthen the delivery of mental health care in low- and middle-income countries. Specifically, Aldridge's research focuses on the integration and scale up of mental health services within health systems and the economic evaluation of mental health interventions. His work in mental health and maternal and child health has spanned research and programming in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Nepal, and Uganda. Aldridge holds an MSc in global mental health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and King's College London, and a BA in psychology from Western Kentucky University.

Jason Gibbons, PhD
Current Post-Doctoral Trainee

Jason Brian Gibbons is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy & Management. He is currently working on a multidisciplinary team evaluating state-level opioid policy reform as a part of the Bloomberg Opioid Initiative. His research is at the intersection of the industrial organization, applied econometrics, machine learning, pharmacoepidemiology, and mental health and substance use disorder policy. He has previously held research positions with the United States Department of Veteran Affairs, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, and an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality R01 grant. He received his PhD in Health Services Organization and Policy from the University of Michigan and his BA in economics from the University of Chicago.

Samantha Harris, PhD

Samantha Harris is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Her primary appointment is with the Bloomberg Opioid Initiative—a project supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies--where she works alongside an interdisciplinary team evaluating state programs and policies that aim to address the opioid epidemic. Harris specializes in health policy and health services research. Her work centers on the accessibility and quality of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services and the assessment of local, state, and federal policies that shape SUD treatment and harm reduction services, with a special focus on publicly insured populations. Harris is also interested in scope of practice modernization and workforce development. Prior to her fellowship, Harris earned her MPA from the Martin School at the University of Kentucky and her PhD in Public Administration and Policy from the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.

Nicholas J. Seewald, PhD
Current Post-Doctoral Trainee

Nick Seewald is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Trained as a statistician, he is interested in developing methodology for causal inference with complex longitudinal data. Currently, his work seeks to answer questions about whether and how to efficiently leverage individual-level data for evaluation of state health policies. Passionate about dissemination, Seewald aims to build innovative and accessible methods which allow scientists to address questions in health policy evaluation, as well as resources to guide their use. Prior to joining the Bloomberg School, he received his PhD in statistics from the University of Michigan, where he developed expertise on the design of randomized trials to construct precision health interventions.

Mara Hollander, PhD
Current T32 Post-Doctoral Trainee

Mara Hollander is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy and Management and is supported by the NIMH Mental Health Services and Systems T32 Training Grant. Her research interests include the financing of mental health and substance use disorder treatment, as well as applying causal and novel analytic methods to study mental health treatment more broadly, particularly in residential and inpatient settings. Hollander earned her PhD in health services research and policy from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, where she worked with the University’s Medicaid Research Center to evaluate program changes, access to and quality of care, and expenditures in Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program. She earned her BA in government from Georgetown University.

Brendan Rabideau 

Brendan Rabideau is a PhD student in Health Economics in the Department of Health Policy and Management. His research interests include identifying ways to incentivize high-value mental health care, as well as exploring the causal relationships between mental illness, mental health treatment, and criminal behavior. Prior to entering the doctoral program, Brendan spent time as a statistical programmer at Abt Associates and the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, where he worked on a broad array of projects related to health and criminal justice policy. Brendan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Neuroscience and Philosophy from the University of Southern California.

Ian Schmid, ScM 
Former T32 Pre-Doctoral Trainee. Currently supported by OBSSR T32.

Ian Schmid is a PhD student in the Department of Mental Health. His primary research interest is in evaluating the effects of mental health and substance use programs and policies. Before enrolling in the Department of Mental Health’s doctoral program, he worked as a research associate in the Department. He received his BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park and his ScM in Biostatistics from Brown University.

Keisha Solomon, PhD 

Keisha Solomon is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Her primary research interests are within the field of applied microeconomics, with special interests in policy evaluation, causal inference, behavioral health, and education. She works with an interdisciplinary research team on the evaluation of state policy efforts related to opioids for a project funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Prior to joining Hopkins, Keisha received her BSc in Economics from the University of Guyana and a PhD in Economics from Temple University. During her doctoral studies, she examined the effects of state-level policies and family-level characteristics on health and/or human capital development.

Elizabeth Stone, MSPH 
Current T32 Pre-Doctoral Trainee

Elizabeth Stone, funded through the NIMH Mental Health Services and Systems T32 Training Grant, is a PhD student in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Her research interests focus on policies related to health care and social services for people with serious mental illness and substance use disorder, and the impact of stigma and public opinion on these policies. Elizabeth previously worked as a research program coordinator at Johns Hopkins, and previously as a music therapist in inpatient psychiatry. Elizabeth earned a Master of Science in Public Health in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy from the University of Evansville.  

Maria Cruz
Current T32 Pre-Doctoral Trainee

Maria Cruz is a doctoral candidate in Health Services Research and Policy in the department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Cruz's research interests include public involvement in mental health policy and research, examining mental health service disparities in underserved populations, and transforming the widening gap of mental health inequity across marginalized groups. Prior to coming to Hopkins, she was a research associate at the University of Miami’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, where she served as a clinical and research coordinator for the Tics, OCD, and Related Disorders clinic. She received her BA in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2018.

Victoria Green, MHS

Victoria Green is a PhD student in the Department of Mental Health. She is broadly interested in behavioral health policy and evaluation, with a specific focus on the intersection of substance use and physical disability policy. She is also interested in evaluating public communication strategies that can reduce stigma associated with mental health and substance use disorders. Green previously worked at the Congressional Research Service as a health policy analyst and at the National Institute on Drug Abuse as a tobacco research analyst. She received her MHS in mental health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her BA in psychology from Gettysburg College.