Bradley Herring
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Policy and Management
Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta. Primarily, I conduct economic research regarding health insurance coverage. I love working in an academic setting.

My undergraduate major at Tulane University was biomedical engineering, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also really liked the economics courses that I took as electives, so I started looking into Ph.D. programs in health services research that could combine my academic interests in medicine and economics.

I enrolled in the doctoral program in the Health Care Systems Department at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business after completing my undergraduate degree. I began my studies thinking that my future research would focus on the financial aspects of the pharmaceutical industry's R&D, but I quickly became interested in understanding the complexities about how private health insurance markets function instead.

As a research assistant, I was fortunate enough to be able to work with Mark Pauly on a research project examining the extent of risk pooling in private insurance markets. In retrospect, I think that one of the most important determinants of a successful academic career is having a good mentor, and I can't imagine a better mentor than Mark.

Examining the effect of health status on insurance coverage led me to examine other determinants of obtaining private coverage. My doctoral dissertation focused on the availability of charity care to the uninsured and the impact it has on decisions to obtain coverage.

Increasingly, I became interested in public policies to expand insurance coverage to the uninsured, and particularly the impact of the political process on potential policies. This led me to apply for the two-year Scholars in Health Policy Research post-doctoral fellowship funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I did my post-doc at the Yale University site. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to devote the bulk of my time to research projects and to interact with political science and sociology post-docs.

After that, I took a tenure-track position at Emory University in the Department of Health Policy and Management, where I have been for about two and a half years. I teach two masters-level courses in health policy, and take great pleasure in interacting with my students. However, like most other tenure-track professors, I must make publishing articles and obtaining grants from the government and foundations my top priorities. Currently, I am the principal investigator on a project examining the impact of Medicaid managed care on both physician participation and enrollee access and utilization. Securing funding is probably the most challenging part of my job. However, I recognize that this process helps to ensure that researchers undertake projects with the most policy importance.

Finally, here is a good piece of advice I received several years ago and that I continue to share with others: Probably the most important key to succeeding in one's first academic position is to find a good group of colleagues who create an encouraging environment. Having smart, collegial people in one's department is important for getting feedback and advice on one's work, as well as for conducting good research projects.