Ian Moura, a second-year PhD student in the Children, Youth and Families concentration, recently received the Health Policy Research Scholar Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Moura will join a new cohort of Health Policy Research Scholars, working and learning alongside other doctoral students from around the country, all focused on advancing health equity. He will be exploring the ways in which algorithmic decision-making impacts disabled people. His goal is to contribute to a reimagining of health and health care that recognizes disability as an identity and experience, rather than simply an outcome, and empowers disabled people as partners and experts in their care. Moura is the third PhD student from the Heller School to be selected as a Health Policy Research Scholar; Yaminette Diaz-Linhart and Aaron Camp are both alumni of this program.
Elad Daniels, a fourth-year PhD student in the Health concentration, and Ian Moura both received awards from the ARDRAW (Analyzing Relationships between Disability, Rehabilitation and Work) Small Grant Program. The ARDRAW program is a one-year stipend program funded by the Social Security Administration, and is awarded to graduate-level students to conduct supervised independent research designed to foster new analysis of work, rehabilitation, and disability issues, which may develop innovative and fresh perspectives on disability. Moura will be using data from the Autism and Employment Experiences Survey to examine autistic adults’ experiences with barriers to and facilitators of employment. Daniels will analyze T-MSIS (Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System) and Medicare Part D claims data to examine racial and ethnic differences in psychotropic medication utilization among individuals receiving Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services and Institutional Long-Term Services and Supports. Of the 17 awardees for ARDRAW, two are Heller School students.
