Session 6:
Harnessing Administrative Data: Examples and Potential
Panel Biographical Statements
David Stapleton, Ph.D. is the Director of the Cornell University Institute for Policy Research, established under his leadership in 2000. For the past 15 years, Dr. Stapleton’s work has focused on the economics of disability policies, especially the impacts of policies on employment and economic independence. Dr. Stapleton is currently co-PI for Cornell’s Research, Rehabilitation and Training Center on Employment Policy for People with Disabilities, for Cornell’s Statistics and Demography Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) evaluation of the Ticket to Work program, and for the design of SSA’s Benefit Offset Demonstration.
Henry T. Ireys, Ph.D., a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research (MPR), has extensive experience in policy analysis and program evaluation related to children and adults with disabilities. For the last several years, he has been working with CMS to develop strategies for quantitatively measuring participation in state Medicaid Buy-In programs, including a database that integrates Social Security Administration (SSA), Medicaid, and Medicare data for Buy-In participants. In addition, he recently completed reports on how states regulate and monitor residential facilities for children and adults with serious mental illness and on state strategies for financing home and community services for youth with serious emotional disorders.
Su Liu, Ph.D., is a health researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR). Dr. Liu’s research focuses on health care financing and health insurance issues for the elderly, persons with disabilities and the uninsured in the United States. She has held leading roles in federally- and state-funded research projects, including analysis of Medicare Advantage stabilization fund, studies of transition events in health insurance coverage, and technical assistance for states' coverage expansion initiatives. Currently, Dr. Liu is working on developing quantitative measures of participation in state Medicaid Buy-In programs, where she refined techniques of integrating administrative data from multiple agencies to track employment and health expenditures for adults with disabilities. Dr. Liu has also done some work on key issues of aging and social security in China.
David H. Dean, Ph.D., is currently an associate professor of economics at the University of Richmond and Co-Director of the Bureau of Disability Economics Research (BDER). He has examined issues related to the economics of disability for the past 25 years. His work at BDER has concentrated on assessing the effectiveness of various federal and state return-to-work programs for persons with disabilities. He has performed evaluations of the efficacy of the federal/state Vocational Rehabilitation program, the Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment Service program for disabled veterans, Social Security Administration’s Ticket-to-Work program, workers’ compensation return-to-work programs, and both supported and sheltered employment programs. His evaluation work has been published in the Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Economic Education Review, Evaluation Review, and Contemporary Economic Policy as well as various rehabilitation journals
Paul O’Leary, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. from RutgersUniversity. He is currently an economist in the Office of Disability, Income and Support Programs at the Social Security Administration. His research interests include the cost and impact of disability on employment and earnings, and programs to support work for disabled individuals. These interests also include survey design for working-age disabled populations. Dr. O’Leary is currently heading the Social Security Administration’s effort to evaluate the Ticket to Work program. He has published recently in the Social Security Bulletin and contributed to a 2003 volume on Ticket to Work incentives published by the Urban Institute.
Craig Thornton (Ph.D. economics, The Johns Hopkins University) isManaging Director of Health Research at Mathematica Policy Research. He hasbeen studying employment and health policies for people with disabilitiessince the early 1980s and has led several major evaluations of programsdesigned to promote independence among people who receive disabilitybenefits. Dr. Thornton currently directs the evaluation of SSA's Ticket toWork program and is advising on evaluations of several other SSAemployment-support demonstration programs. He can be reached .