Simone Matecna

Simone Matecna graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Peace and Conflict Studies in 2020. After graduating, Simone worked as a predoctoral research fellow for Dr. Amitabh Chandra at Harvard Kennedy School. Their ongoing work uses Medicare claims to show that doctors and their spouses have significantly less emergency department use than socioeconomically matched controls, primarily driven by better access to prescriptions. In 2023, Simone was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Broadly, her research agenda centers on identifying place-based disadvantage and evaluating place-based policies and interventions aimed at addressing structural racism. Her current work focuses on identifying the long-term impact of the crack cocaine drug crisis on Black–White health inequities and on the use of alternative care models, such as school-based health centers, to reduce racial health disparities.