Health economist Carrie Colla, PhD, highly respected for her research examining health system performance and the effectiveness of payment and delivery system reforms, has been named the Susan J. and Richard M. Levy 1960 Distinguished Professor in Health Care Delivery.
Colla’s faculty appointment is as a professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine. She succeeds Amber Barnato, MD, MS, MPH—who now serves as the John E. Wennberg Distinguished Professor in Health Policy and Clinical Practice and director of The Dartmouth Institute—in the Levy Professorship role.
“I’m delighted to recognize Carrie’s achievements by appointing her to this named professorship,” says Duane Compton, PhD, dean of Geisel. “Her combination of research skills, policy expertise, and experience using research to inform changes at the healthcare system level strongly aligns with the aspirations for this Distinguished Professorship.”
The Susan J. and Richard M. Levy Distinguished Professorship is intended to further the mission of Geisel by leading an interdisciplinary effort to accelerate the transformation of U.S. healthcare and healthcare systems by developing strategies to curb costs while ensuring high-quality care and access. The Distinguished Professorship is named in honor of Richard (Dick) Levy (’60) and his late wife, Susan, who endowed the Professorship as part of Dartmouth’s Academic Cluster Initiative.
“I’m really grateful to Susan and Dick Levy for this opportunity to lead the Levy Academic Cluster in Health Economics and Policy,” says Colla. “To have the support of the Levys along with the college, in thinking about important policy problems and their influence on patients, will be crucial to our success.”
As part of her leadership role in developing the new Levy Academic Cluster, Colla is hiring and mentoring two new junior faculty members who will assist her in establishing a health policy center at Dartmouth, which will support policy makers with evidence-based research in areas such as rural health, health equity, and population health.
“We’re really excited to create a new research team at The Dartmouth Institute,” says Colla. “The opportunity to work with new colleagues doing innovative work in this space is inspiring.”
The Levy Academic Cluster will also leverage the ongoing work of the Susan & Richard Levy Health Care Delivery Incubator—a joint initiative between Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Health that brings together multidisciplinary teams of researchers and frontline healthcare providers to improve patient care.
Like Levy, Colla is a Dartmouth alumna, having graduated from the College with a major in economics and a minor in public policy from the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy. She began her post-doctoral career at Dartmouth in 2010 as an assistant professor.
Colla is returning to Dartmouth now after two years leading the Health Analysis Division at the Congressional Budget Office in Washington, DC. She previously participated in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellows Program and worked at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. In 2020, Colla was selected as an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar by the National Academy of Medicine.
Colla will continue to teach health economics and policy to undergraduate and graduate students.
