I am currently a Research Economist at the Oregon Social Learning Center focused on measuring implementation costs and resource allocation for large-scale evidence-based practices (EBPs). In my final year of graduate school I started working as a Research Assistant for Dr. Wesley Wilson at the University of Oregon, primarily focused on transportation cost analysis. We estimated the demand of shippers’ use of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in relationship to alternative available modes of transportation. 

As an Economist for the Surface Transportation Board (STB), we were hired to evaluate the regulatory program used to determine the unit cost of a railroad move. The current program, Uniform Railroad Costing System (URCS), was a complex multi-linear regression model used to estimate the long run variable cost (LRVC) from primarily railroad accounting data and underlying assumptions about fixed versus variable cost of inputs. In collaboration with Dr. Wesley Wilson, we modeled marginal cost of railroad moves under competitive conditions to establish a benchmark for evaluating marginal cost of a shipment under market dominance, estimated using the STB classified version of the weighted Waybill records and ultimately submitted a report to US Congress. 

I joined the Center for Research to Practice (CR2P) in 2011, and worked with Dr. Patti Chamberlain and Dr. Lisa Saldana on a large-scale randomized trial in 51 counties in California and Ohio contrasting the cost of two implementation strategies for implementing Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO; formally known as MTFC) for youth in child welfare and juvenile justice systems (R01MH076158-01A1; Chamberlain). 

Additionally, I worked on developing the process known as Costing of Implementing New Strategies (COINS). The COINS assessment tool is currently being used by several ongoing implementation trials, and helps to disentangle implementation from intervention costs. COINS has demonstrated success in identifying cost and resource differences between implementation strategies. I have been involved in adapting the Stages of Implementation Completion (SIC) for more than 20 EBPs across a multitude of variable service sectors (R01MH097748-01A1; Saldana), as well as using the COINS framework to estimate the implementation cost of adopting an EBP.