Douglas K. Owens, MD, Director, CHP/PCOR, Professor of Medicine
Douglas K. Owens is the Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, and Director of the Center for Health Policy (CHP) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and of the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (PCOR) in the Department of Medicine and School of Medicine at Stanford. He is a general internist and Associate Director of the Center for Innovation to Implementation, a health services research center of excellence, at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Owens is a Professor of Medicine and, by courtesy, Professor of Health Research and Policy, and Professor of Management Science and Engineering, at Stanford University; he is also a Senior Fellow at FSI. His research focuses on technology assessment, cost-effectiveness analysis, evidence synthesis, and methods for clinical decision making and guideline development.
Laurence C. Baker, PhD, Chair, Dept. of Health Research and Policy, Professor of Health Research and Policy
Laurence Baker is Professor of Health Research and Policy, Chair of the Department of Health Research and Policy, and a CHP/PCOR fellow. He is an economist interested in the organization and economic performance of the U.S. health-care system, and his research has investigated a range of topics including financial incentives in health care, competition in health-care markets, health insurance and managed care, and health-care technology adoption. Baker is a past recipient of the ASHE medal from ASHEcon and the Alice Hersch Award from AcademyHealth. He received his BA from Calvin College, and his MA and PhD in economics from Princeton University.
Kathryn M. McDonald, MM, Executive Director, CHP/PCOR, Senior Scholar
Kathryn McDonald is the executive director of CHP/PCOR and a senior scholar at the centers. She is also associate director of the Stanford-UCSF Evidence-based Practice Center (under RAND). Her work focuses on measures and interventions to achieve evidence-based patient-centered healthcare quality and patient safety. McDonald has served as a project director and principal investigator on a number of research projects at the Stanford School of Medicine, including the development and ongoing enhancement of the Quality and Patient Safety Indicators for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
M. Kate Bundorf, MBA, MPH, PhD, Chief, Division of Health Research; Associate Professor, Health Research and Policy
M. Kate Bundorf is an Associate Professor of Health Research and Policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine, an Associate Professor, by Courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a Stanford Health Policy Fellow. She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She received her M.B.A. and M.P.H. degrees from The University of California at Berkeley and her Ph.D. from The Wharton School. She was a Fulbright Lecturer and Visiting Professor at Fudan School of Public Health in Shanghai, China in 2009 and 2010.
Nancy Lonhart, MA, Associate Director & Division Manager, CHP/PCOR
Nancy Lonhart provides administrative and financial leadership, guidance and oversight for the centers’ operations, including strategic planning and development, finance and research administration, human resources, and faculty and student affairs. Nancy’s interests in health care research began at Stanford Hospital and Clinics where she worked under hospital administration to develop clinical and service performance programs and to establish hospital vs. national benchmarks for patient care. She was awarded the Amy J. Blue Award in 2016 for her outstanding dedication to Stanford University.
Martha Kessler, Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Dept. of Health Research and Policy
Martha Kessler serves as the Executive Director of Finance and Administration for the Department of Health Research and Policy, Spectrum-Translational Research Program, Population Health Sciences, Basic Science Shared Services Consortium and the Department of Structural Biology. She received the Marsh O'Neill Research Award in 2015 for participating in the perfect NIH score on the Clinical Translational Science Award. She also is the Stanford coordinator for pet assisted therapy for pet visits to de-stress students, staff and faculty events around campus.
