Center Director
Bradley Herring, Ph.D.
Forrest D. McKerley Professor of Health Economics
Economics Department in the Paul College of Business and Economics
Health Management and Policy Department in the College of Health and Human Services
Professor Bradley Herring’s research focuses on several economic and policy issues related to health insurance markets, hospital markets, and healthcare reform. He has published in the Journal of Health Economics, New England Journal of Medicine, and JAMA, and been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, NIH's National Cancer Institute, HHS ASPE, and AHRQ. Dr. Herring previously held faculty appointments in the Schools of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and Emory University. His policy experience includes serving for one year as a Senior Staff Economist with the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and serving for several years as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the state-run Maryland Health Insurance Plan. He received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and completed a two-year RWJF Health Policy fellowship at Yale University.
Faculty Affiliates
Bingnin (Ben) Xue, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Economics
Paul College of Business and Economics
Assistant Professor Ben Xue’s research focuses on causal inference in the field of health economics using econometric methods, machine learning, and large-scale data. Xue’s current research includes a project examining how health IT affects healthcare providers and consumers; the impact of public policies on the population mental health and wellbeing; and dynamic demand functions analysis. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Lehigh University.
Linda Ragland, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Accounting
Paul College of Business and Economics
Associate Professor Linda Ragland’s research focuses on financial and governmental/nonprofit accounting, including prior work on nonprofit hospitals and tax-exempt bond markets. Before joining UNH’s Paul College in fall of 2013, she was a visiting assistant professor at Georgia State University; and prior to that, she was a Fiscal Director for a Component Unit of the State of Tennessee. Her research has been published in various peer-reviewed accounting academic journals including the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy and the Journal of Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting. She received her Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of South Florida.
Semra Aytur, Ph.D.
Professor of Health Management and Policy
College of Health and Human Services
Professor Semra Aytur’s research focuses on relationships between policy, environment, and systems change to promote healthy behaviors and prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, with an emphasis on health disparities. Aytur has experience working in public health departments in several states, along with experience working in hospitals conducting patient-centered outcomes research. She received her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also completed a fellowship in cardiovascular epidemiology.
Esmaeil Bahalkeh, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy
College of Health and Human Services
Assistant Professor Esmaeil Bahalkeh’s research in healthcare operations management utilizes a collection of quantitative methods and tools to improve quality and processes efficiencies and to evaluate the effectiveness of operational policies in health systems. Specifically, his research focuses on microsimulation, optimization, applied statistics, and machine learning tools to improve quality and process efficiencies in health systems and evaluate the effectiveness of operational policies in health systems. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.
Student Affiliates
Fahimeh Ebrahimi
Ph.D. Student in Economics | Paul College of Business and Economics
Fahimeh Ebrahimi begins her fourth year in the Economics Department’s Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2025. Her primary field is Health Economics, and her research interests include analyses of Electronic Health Records (EHR). One current project examines the effects of hospital market concentration on the adoption of relatively advanced hospital EHRs, while another research project examines the effects of adopting more advanced hospital EHRs on healthcare quality and health outcomes.
María Cecilia Gómez
Ph.D. Student in Economics | Paul College of Business and Economics
Maria Gómez begins her third year in the Economics Department’s Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2025. Her primary field is Health Economics, and her research interests focus on vulnerable populations and access to care. One current project focuses on the disabled who are blind and their proximity to walkable neighborhoods, while another research project examines the effects of hospital mergers and acquisitions on the availability of various hospital service lines.
