Student Research Assistants - Lurie Institute for Disability Policy

Reid Caplan

Graduate Research Assistant

Reid Caplan is a PhD student in the Children, Youth, and Families concentration at the Heller School. Their research works to promote community inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with a focus on cognitively accessible and participatory-action-based projects. In addition, Reid previously served as the Associate Director of Advocacy and Development at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), a national disability-policy nonprofit run by and for autistic people.

Anna Cass

Student Communications Assistant

Anna Cass is a Brandeis senior studying Health: Science, Society and Policy (HSSP). She is pursuing minors in Social Justice, Social Policy (SJSP) and Creativity, the Arts and Social Transformation (CAST). She works with Brandeis Student Accessibility Support as an Accessibility Fellow, providing guidance to students who are navigating accessibility at Brandeis.

Natalie Chong

Graduate Research Assistant

Natalie Chong is a doctoral student at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management where she studies health policy and health services research. Her research interests include access to and quality of end-of-life care, as well as aging and health policy issues that impact older adults. She is also an analyst in RTI International’s Quality Measurement and Health Policy Program, where she works to develop performance measures for federal quality reporting programs in post-acute care settings.

ningning@brandeis.edu

Emily Crandall

Graduate Research Assistant

Emily Ledingham Crandall, MPH, is a PhD student and NIAAA pre-doctoral trainee studying behavioral health and disability policy. She received a Master of Public Health from Westminster College and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from the University of Utah. Emily worked for nearly four years at the State of Utah Division of Services for People with Disabilities as a research consultant. She also taught as an adjunct professor at Westminster College in the public health program for three years. Her research interests include improving service systems, civil rights of people with disabilities, substance use/abuse, and healthcare access.

emilycrandall@brandeis.edu 801-864-5093

Elad Daniels

Graduate Research Assistant

Elad Daniels is a Ph.D. candidate in the health concentration social policy doctoral program at Heller. He completed his second MA in economics from Hebrew University and his first MA in European Economic Policy from the College of Europe. He received his BA from Hebrew University, where he majored in economics and international relations. Prior to coming to Heller, he worked as a research associate at the Myers–JDC–Brookdale Institute in Jerusalem, researching hospital payment reforms and pharmaceutical-managed entry agreements in public healthcare systems. Prior to that, he worked as a junior economist at the Israeli Ministry of Finance. Elad is interested in applying advanced econometric techniques to better understand changes in healthcare markets, public policy, and societies.

Gabrielle Katz

Graduate Research Assistant

Gabrielle Katz is a PhD candidate concentrating in health policy at the Heller School. Her research interests include understanding disparities in health access and quality of post-acute and long-term support services for older adults and adults with disabilities in the U.S. In addition to her role at Lurie, she is the Assistant Director for The Council on Health Care Economics and Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Prior to the PhD program, Gabrielle worked in conducting program evaluation, technical assistance, implementation, and policy analysis for federal stakeholders like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and state stakeholders the like the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

gkatz10@brandeis.edu

Mohammad Nosherwan Malik

Undergraduate Student Accessibility Specialist

Mohammad is a senior at Brandeis studying Physics. He works with the Lurie Institute as a student accessibility specialist. He also works in the Rogers Lab as a Biophysics Undergraduate Research Assistant. Outside of classes and academic work, Mohammad spends his time reading and playing football.

Maddy Pliskin

Undergraduate Communications Assistant

Maddy Pliskin is an undergraduate communications assistant at the Lurie Institute. Previously, she was an Undergraduate Fellow in Disability Policy. She is a junior majoring in Biology and Health: Science, Society and Policy (HSSP). Outside Lurie, Maddy is a member of Chabad Club and volunteers with elderly patients in hospice. As an undergraduate fellow, Maddy researched opioid misuse among people with disabilities under her mentor Rachel Sayko Adams.

Kartik Trivedi

Graduate Research Assistant

Kartik Trivedi, MPA, is a PhD student interested in workplace inclusion, career pathways, and economic self-sufficiency as related to persons with disabilities. Kartik has several years of experience as a researcher in the workforce policy and inclusion. He has also worked as a researcher in development policies in India. If not in class or at work, you can find him taking photographs on the streets of Boston and surrounding areas. He also thinks that he makes the best chai on the east coast, a claim which is yet to be proven through conclusive research.

kartiktrivedi@brandeis.edu