Dr. Halpern is Associate Professor (with Tenure) of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. The FIELDS program, which Dr. Halpern founded in 2012, includes scholars from multiple health-related disciplines who are united by the belief that untoward influences on how patients, family members, and providers make choices contribute to the high intensity of care that many patients receive near the ends of their lives. The Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) is 1 of 2 NIH-funded centers on Behavioral Economics and Health. CHIBE develops interventions that reduce the unhealthy behaviors (e.g., smoking, overeating, and medication non-adherence) that account for the majority of preventable morbidity and mortality in the developed world. Dr. Halpern’s research is currently supported by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Greenwall Foundation, and the American Heart Association. He has received the United States’ most prestigious awards for young academics in two different disciplines: the Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar Award (2008) in bioethics, and AcademyHealth’s Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award (2011) in health services research. In 2012, Dr. Halpern was 1 of 10 people to receive the Young Leader Award as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s 40th Anniversary, recognizing people aged 40 or under who offer “great promise for leading the way to improved health and health care for all Americans.” He is an Anniversary Fellow at the Institute of Medicine, an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Annals of Internal Medicine and the American Journal of Bioethics. Dr. Halpern has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, and roughly 50 editorials, reviews, and chapters. He has consulted on ethical and scientific matters for the NIH, CDC, UNOS, The World Bank, and two Advisory Committees to the U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services.

Dr. French received a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Washington in June 2008 and joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in August 2008. His research interests are focused on analytic methodology for longitudinal, clustered, and survival data. He is particularly interested in applying this methodology to quantify comparative effectiveness, evaluate the impact of policy interventions, and quantify prediction accuracy. Additional research interests include genetic epidemiology and design of randomized trials. His collaborative interests are focused on cardiovascular disease epidemiology and health economics. Dr. French is highly interested in the implementation of statistical methods and data analysis using R, particularly for reproducible research and effective visualizations.

Dylan Small is a statistician specializing in causal inference and applications to the health sciences. Dr. Small is a professor in the Department of Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 after obtaining his Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University in 1997. Dr. Small has authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications. Dr. Small is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. Dr. Small is the founding editor of the journal Observational Studies, the first journal to focus on observational studies.

Kathryn A. Saulsgiver, PhD, is a Senior Research Investigator at the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She holds a MS and a PhD from the University of Florida. Kathryn completed her post-doctoral research at the Substance Abuse Treatment Center at the University of Vermont. Her interests include chronic disease management, particularly finding innovative ways to improve health behaviors. Her research goals are to investigate how principles of psychology and behavioral economics improve health-related decisions, particularly those related to smoking cessation, drug abuse, HIV prevention and general wellbeing.

Michael Harhay is a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is concurrently pursuing a masters degree in statistics. His research focuses on epidemiologic methods and empirical strategies to improve the design and analysis of clinical trials. His collaborative projects are primarily focused on critical care epidemiology. Michael is the primary investigator of a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (F31HL127947), which supports his dissertation research. Michael holds master’s degrees in demography, public health, and bioethics, all from the University of Pennsylvania.

David Asch is the executive director of the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation and the director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. He is professor of medicine and professor of medical ethics and health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine and professor of health care management and professor of operations, information, and decisions at the Wharton School - all at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a physician at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. David's research aims to understand and improve how physicians and patients make medical choices in clinical, financial, and ethically charged settings, including the adoption of new pharmaceuticals or medical technologies, the purchase of health or life insurance, and personal health behaviors. His research combines elements of economic analysis with moral and psychological theory and marketing. David received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, his medical degree from Weill-Cornell Medical College, and his MBA in health care management and decision sciences from the Wharton School. He was a resident in internal medicine and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Volpp’s work focuses on developing and testing innovative ways of applying insights from behavioral economics in improving patient health behavior and affecting provider performance. He has done work with a variety of employers, insurers, health systems, and consumer companies in testing the effectiveness of different behavioral economic strategies in addressing tobacco dependence, obesity, and medication non-adherence. These studies have been funded by the National Institutes of Aging as well as the National Heart Lung, Blood Institute; the National Cancer Institute; the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disorders; the CDC;VA Health Services Research and Development; the US Department of Agriculture; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the Hewlett Foundation; the Commonwealth Foundation; the Aetna Foundation; Mckinsey; CVS Caremark; Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield; Humana; Aramark; and Discovery (South Africa).