Donna Spencer, PhD, is a Senior Research Associate at SHADAC and has over 15 years of experience in applied social, public health, and health services research.  In her current position, she manages SHADAC’s 2012 State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE) grant program as well as research projects on health care reform and state health policy.

Prior to joining SHADAC in December 2011, Dr. Spencer worked as a survey researcher at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill School of Public Health for 3 years and as a Research Associate and consultant for the Health, Social, and Economics Research Division at RTI International (formerly Research Triangle Institute) for over 7 years. Between 2005 and 2009, Dr. Spencer was employed as a Senior Research Fellow at SHADAC, where she led, managed, and/or participated in numerous health policy research projects involving survey, hospital discharge, Medicaid claims, and administrative health care cost data. Between 2009 and 2011, Dr. Spencer worked as a Senior Researcher/Associate Director of Health Economics and Outcomes Researcher at i3 Innovus (now a part of OptumInsight).  Dr. Spencer holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Minnesota and a MA in Applied Social Research from West Virginia University.