Amanda Kowalski

Amanda Kowalski is the Gail Wilensky Professor of Applied Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan's Department of Economics (LSA). She specializes in health economics, focusing on integrating experiments, econometric methods, and contextual models to address health policy questions. Her research examines insurance expansions (e.g., Medicaid, ACA), medical treatment targeting, and health spending impacts on newborns. She currently holds tenure and is on leave during Fall 2024 and Winter 2025.

Education: PhD in Economics (MIT, 2008), A.B. in Economics (Harvard, 2003). Previous positions include Associate Professor at Yale (2009–2018), Visiting roles at Stanford (2015–2016) and Princeton (2017–2018), and postdoctoral work at NBER. Policy experience includes roles at the White House Council of Economic Advisers (2003–2004) and Brookings Institution (2011–2012).

Research Interests: Health insurance impacts, clinical trial analysis, policy targeting, and econometric methods. Her work emphasizes rigorous evaluation of healthcare policies and their distributional effects.

Awards: 2019 ASHEcon Medal, NSF CAREER Award, Zellner Thesis Award, and multiple journal awards. Her research appears in top economics journals and has been featured in New York Times, NPR, and Wall Street Journal.

Grants: $2M Meet the Moment Grant (2024) for studying health inequities via vaccination data. Supported by NIH, RWJF, Russell Sage, and Upjohn.

Labs/Teams: Research Associate at NBER (Economics of Health, Public Economics, Aging Programs). Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams on policy-relevant health economics topics.