Heidi Allen, PhD, is the Associate Dean for Research, and Associate Professor of Social Work at Columbia School of Social Work. She studies the impact of social policies, like Medicaid – America’s health insurance for the poor – on health and financial well-being. She is a former emergency department social worker and spent several years in state health policy, where she focused on health system redesign and public health insurance expansions. Heidi was a lead investigator on the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, where she oversaw primary data collection for mail surveys and in-person health screenings, qualitative interviews, and development of an administrative emergency department claims database.