Our Team
Professor Kees van Gool
Kees van Gool is a Deputy Director and Professor at the Centre of Health Economics Research and Evaluation. Kees has extensive experience in program evaluation and economic analysis, with a strong focus on applied research. He is the lead investigator for the Centre of Research Excellence in Value Based Cancer Care.
Research Interests: health financing, primary care, healthcare costs, comparative health system performance, equity
Professor Kees van Gool
University of Technology Sydney
Professor Jane Hall
Jane Hall is Distinguished Professor of Health Economics in the UTS Business School and the Director of Strategy for the Centre of Health Economics Research and Evaluation. She has worked across many areas of health economics, including health technology assessment, the measurement of quality of life, end of life care, health workforce, the economics of primary care and funding and financing issues.
Research Interests: healthcare funding, insurance design, equity
Website: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/jane.hall.
Professor Jane Hall
University of Technology Sydney
Professor Sanchia Aranda
Professor Sanchia Aranda AM is the past CEO of Cancer Council Australia and the past President for Union for International Cancer Control and inaugural Board Chair of the Cancer City Challenge Foundation. She is regarded as one of the world’s pre-eminent experts in cancer control.
Professor Sanchia Aranda
Cancer Council Australia/University of Melbourne
Professor Robyn Ward
Professor Robyn Ward is the Executive Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor Medicine and Health. Robyn has demonstrated sustained translational and clinical research performance at the highest level. Her research performance is supported through a consistently strong grant track record, including NHMRC and ARC funding, as well as grants from cancer authorities.
Website: https://sydney.edu.au/medicine-health/about/our-people/academic-staff/robyn-ward.html
Professor Robyn Ward
University of Sydney
Dr Philip Haywood
Philip Haywood is a clinician and academic with extensive cross disciplinary experience from medical, policy and economic perspectives. Phil worked for over a decade in the emergency department at Newcastle’s Calvary Mater Hospital. His PhD was in the use of administrative data to support an outcome-based funding model.
Research Interests: value-based pricing, health technology assessment, funding in healthcare
Website: : https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/philip.haywood.
Dr Philip Haywood
University of Technology Sydney
Professor Karen Canfell
As Chair of Cancer Council Australia’s Cancer Screening and Immunisation Committee, Karen brings a wealth of experience in cancer screening policy and evaluation. Karen is a cancer epidemiologist and is Director of Cancer Research at Cancer Council NSW and Adjunct Professor at Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney. Karen holds a D.Phil. (PhD equivalent) in Epidemiology from the University of Oxford.
Website: https://www.cancer.org.au/news/authors/karen-canfell.html.
Professor Karen Canfell
Cancer Council NSW
Professor Denzil Fiebig
Denzil took up his current position of Professor in the School of Economics, UNSW Business School in 2001 having previously held a chair in econometrics at the University of Sydney. He has served terms as discipline head at both universities.
Research Interests: econometrics, health economics
Website: https://www.business.unsw.edu.au/our-people/denzilfiebig.
Professor Denzil Fiebig
University of NSW
Associate Professor Richard De Abreu Lourenco
Associate Professor De Abrue Lourenco is the Senior Evaluator for CHERE’s PBAC evaluation services provided to the Department of Health and the Project Lead for the Cancer Australia funded Cancer Research Economics Support Team (CREST). Richard is an experienced health economist with over 20 years’ experience, spending time in academia and the private sector focusing on access to health care in Australia.
Research Interests: decision-making in cancer care, economic evaluation alongside clinical trials, demonstrating value for reimbursement purposes, consumer engagement, choice
Website: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/richard.deabreulourenco.
Associate Professor Richard De Abrue Lourenco
University of Technology Sydney
Dr Serena Yu
Serena is a Senior Research Fellow at CHERE where her focus is on policy and outcome evaluation. She has applied her econometric expertise to a range of topics, including health, aged care, wages, and pension policy. At CHERE she specialises in the use of administrative and survey data and has built a strong track record in NHMRC-funded projects. She received her PhD and prize for Best Thesis in Economics from the University of Sydney in 2016.
Research Interests: provider behaviour, economics of maternity and neonatal care
Website: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/serena.yu.
Dr Serena Yu
University of Technology Sydney
Dr Sarah Wise
Sarah Wise joined CHERE from the Faculty of Health, UTS in 2019 as the Senior Research Fellow in Health Policy. Sarah has managed and conducted numerous research and evaluation projects, in health, aged care and the broader economy, for a range of government, union and industry partners. Sarah brings her specialist expertise in the healthcare workforce and the organisation of healthcare work to help understand the barriers and enablers to payment reform.
Research Interests: workloads, skill mix, teamwork, health professions, institutional and organisational barriers to health reform
Website: https://profiles.uts.edu.au/Sarah.Wise.
Dr Sarah Wise
University of Technology Sydney
Dr Maryam Naghsh Nejad
Maryam is a Senior Research Fellow at CHERE where she works on economic evaluation projects. Prior to that she worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn, Germany. Maryam was the deputy director of Growth and Labor Markets in Low Income Countries (GLM-LIC) at IZA where she worked with academic and policy makers globally on labour market projects in low-income countries.
Research Interests: migration, health, labour, development economics
Dr Maryam Naghsh Nejad
University of Technology Sydney
Dr Dan Liu
Dan Liu is a Senior Research Fellow at CHERE. Prior to joining CHERE, Dan worked as a Research Fellow at the University of York, UK. She has experience working at the World Health Organization (Switzerland) and Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (China).
Research Interests: health system reform, policy and program evaluation, quality of primary and secondary care, global health, spatial econometrics
Website: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/dan.liu.
Dr Dan Liu
University of Technology Sydney
Dr Olukorede Abiona
Olukorede joined CHERE, UTS as a research fellow in October 2017. Before joining CHERE, he worked as a Lecturer at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom where he received his PhD. Olukorede was an active member of the Health and Public Policy Evaluation Network (HaPPEN) at Leicester. Part of the team’s projects included evaluation of public policy for human capital development in developing countries such as Brazil and Tanzania.
Research Interests: health economics, policy and program evaluation, applied microeconomics
Dr Olukorede Abiona
University of Technology Sydney
Patsy Kenny
Patsy is a Senior Research Fellow and joined CHERE in 1990. She worked as a registered nurse before completing the BA in Government and Political Economy at The University of Sydney. Patsy was awarded her Master of Public Health from The University of Sydney in 1998, her treatise investigated patient participation in treatment decisions for breast cancer.
Research Interests: valuing care at the end of life, consumer preferences, informal care in economic evaluation, nursing workforce issues.
Patsy Kenny
University of Technology Sydney
Lutfun Hossain
Lutfun Hossain is a pharmacist and Research Fellow at CHERE. Lutfun is currently exploring the international literature on bundled payments in oncology and assessing their translatability to the Australian setting.
Research Interests: bundled payments, primary care, healthcare costs, medication utilisation
Lutfun Hossain
University of Technology Sydney
Nikita Khanna
Nikita Khanna is the Program Manager for this group and a PhD Candidate at CHERE. Nikita has previously worked with NHMRC, CTC of University of Sydney and holds a Master in Economics from University of Sydney.
Research Interests: health economics, policy and equity.
Nikita Khanna
University of Technology Sydney
Our Partners
Professor David Currow
Professor David Currow FAHMS is the Chief Cancer Officer of NSW and Chief Executive Officer of the Cancer Institute NSW, the NSW Government’s cancer control agency.
Website: https://www.cancer.nsw.gov.au/about-us/media/spokespeople/david-currow.
Professor David Currow
Cancer Institute NSW
Associate Professor Christine Giles
Christine is a leader with expertise in strategy, policy and health systems. Christine has deep health industry experience in national policy reform, health service governance and planning and international health policy and business development.
Website: https://www.sydney.edu.au/medicine-health/about/our-people/academic-staff/christine-giles.html.
Associate Professor Christine Giles
Cancer Australia
Shane Solomon
Shane Solomon has over 30 years of international and national healthcare management expertise. Shane currently provides health strategy and advisory services and has non-executive director roles. Prior to this he was the founding Managing Director of Telstra Health, a new eHealth business within Telstra.
Shane Solomon
Chair, Independent Hospital Pricing Authority
Dr Sarah Barras
Sarah currently holds the research, rehabilitation and project portfolio at the Australian Health Service Alliance. The Alliance represents 29 registered health funds, making it the fourth largest private health insurer group in Australia. The Alliance supports its member funds in responding to the changes and emerging challenges in the health insurance environment.
Dr Sarah Barras
Australian Health Services Alliance
Dr Samuel Webster
Samuel leads a team of mathematicians and statisticians to develop the pricing models which are used for Commonwealth public hospital funding.
Dr Samuel Webster
Independent Hospital Pricing Authority
Dr Eleonara Feletto
Eleonora Feletto has contributed to assessing service usage in Australia to improve health care and collaborates with both international and national research partners. She leads a team of researchers at Cancer Council New South Wales, under the leadership of Dr. Karen Canfell, focused on modelling the natural history of colorectal cancer in Australia to estimate the short and long-term health and economic outcomes for the second most common cause of cancer death in Australia. Her more recent work explores primary prevention and screening initiatives and their impact on the colorectal cancer burden in Australia through epidemiological studies and cost-effectiveness analyses.
Website: https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/69925/staff-profiles/staff-profile-dr-eleonora-feletto/.
Dr Eleonora Feletto
Cancer Council NSW
PhD Students
Nikita Khanna
Nikita Khanna is the Program Manager for this group and a PhD Candidate at CHERE. Nikita has previously worked with NHMRC, CTC of University of Sydney and holds a Master in Economics from University of Sydney.
Research Interests: health economics, policy and equity.
Nikita Khanna
University of Technology Sydney