Emily is Professor and Head of the Department of Health Services Research and Policy at the ANU where she leads a multidisciplinary group of researchers including a growing team of health economists. Emily holds a number of current and past (ARC, NHMRC, MRC, NIHR, EU funded) research grants and fellowships. She is a member of a number of government advisory committees including the Economic Sub-Committee of the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee which informs government decision making on which items are listed on the Medical Benefits Schedule and therefore receive public funding through Australia’s Medicare system.

Prior to joining ANU, Emily was an Associate Professor in the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University. Joining Monash in 2011 represented a return to Australia after spending more than 7 years at Newcastle University in the UK where she held Senior Lecturer and Lecturer positions in the Department of Economics along with an ESRC/MRC/NIHR funded Early Career Fellowship on the Economics of Health. Emily also previously worked at CHERE and at the Federal Department of Health where she started her career as a Cadet Health Economist and was part of the graduate program.  She is a past Vice President of the Australian Health Economics Society.

Appealing features of applying economics to the health sector are the potential for application of a variety of economic approaches (e.g. microeconomics, macroeconomics, labour economics (health workforce), behavioural economics, econometrics etc.), working with researchers from other disciplines (e.g. clinicians, epidemiologists, psychologists etc.) and its high policy and societal relevance. 

Within health economics, Emily’s research focuses on understanding and modelling choice, preferences and behaviour of key players (patients, health care providers, policy makers, general public) in the health sector.  Her research is both methodological in focus and the application of those methods to real world policy and clinically relevant issues.

Emily holds a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) both from the ANU, a Post Grad Dip in Health Economics from Monash University, a Master of Economics from the University of Sydney and a PhD in Economics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the UK.