Tara Templin

Tara Templin, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, and a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Her research focuses on the socioeconomic causes and consequences of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), cost-effective public health policies, and health system financing in resource-constrained settings. She employs quantitative tools like microeconometrics and machine learning for causal inference.

Education:

• B.A. in Economics and Mathematics, Columbia University (2013)
• M.S. in Statistics, Stanford University (2017)
• Ph.D. in Health Policy (Economics), Stanford University (2022)

Research Interests: Dr. Templin’s work examines economic drivers of nutrition-related chronic illnesses, conditional cash transfers’ impact on obesity and hypertension, global health system preparedness for NCDs, and effective treatments for cardiometabolic diseases in low-resource settings. She integrates interdisciplinary approaches to address health inequities and policy design.

Professional Experience:

• Former National Institute on Aging T32 Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley
• Former Data Science Scholar at Stanford Data Science
• Prior roles at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (University of Washington), Center for Global Development, and Council on Foreign Relations

Grants and Collaborations: Dr. Templin’s research has explored global health financing mechanisms, policy evaluation, and the intersection of economics and public health. Her work emphasizes scalable solutions for improving population health outcomes in diverse contexts.

Affiliations: Carolina Population Center, Gillings School of Global Public Health.