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Natalie Matthews has over 15 years of experience in the field of homelessness, with a focus on direct service, system planning, database administration, and technical assistance and implementation (TA). Since joining Abt in 2009, Matthews has served in a variety of roles on its U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Compass TA cooperative agreements. She’s also worked on several locally and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-funded TA projects, as well as research, monitoring and evaluation projects.  She served as the project director for the VA’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) monitoring project, served on the evaluation team for HUD’s first evaluation of rapid re-housing programs for families (2012), and led the evaluation of Hartford Connecticut’s homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing program (2014).

Julia Watson is an economist and health systems specialist with 25 years of experience working on both developed and developing country health systems. She has extensive experience managing people and programs and collaborating with a wide range of partners. Her work focuses on improving health financing systems and strengthening the stewardship role of governments in mixed health systems.

Michael Witt brings more than 33 years of experience as a statistician specializing in survey design and survey data analytics. He has more than 27 years of managing staff at the administrative and project level. Mr. Witt has worked with government clients in fields ranging from energy to healthcare.

Jason Brinkley, Ph.D., is a biostatistician, data scientist and health researcher who leads the Research Design and Analytics team in Abt’s Data Science, Surveys and Enabling Technologies division. Brinkley has expertise in a wide range of analytic methods, and he specializes in machine learning, customized data visualizations, maps and dash-boarding. Brinkley balances research time between examining theoretical ways to assess the impact of medical interventions on public health and developing best practices for using statistical software. A member of the American Statistical Association, AcademyHealth, and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, he also serves on the executive board of the Southeast SAS Users Group.

Dr. Michael Plotzke is a senior health economist with expertise in the area of Medicare payment policy, the organization of healthcare providers and quality measurement. His work typically involves the analysis of large datasets such as Medicare claims, assessment and enrollment data. Dr. Plotzke serves as principal investigator for multiple projects with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.  On the “Home Health Prospective Payment System and Hospice: Analysis Support and Monitoring” project, Dr. Plotzke leads a team of researchers in analyzing trends in Medicare hospice and home health usage and constructing large-scale payment reform options for both benefits.  Dr. Plotzke also leads the “Evaluation of the Medicare Care Choices Model” project that evaluates a new payment model for end-of-life care that is being tested with 141 hospice providers.  This project involves analysis of existing administrative data and collection of new data through surveys of caregivers, surveys of hospice providers and in-depth case studies of hospice providers participating in the model.

For 15 years, Lauren Dunton has been working in homelessness, housing, workforce, and education research at Abt. As an experienced Project Director, Dunton manages research and technical assistance projects for a range of federal agencies and foundation clients. She has expertise in qualitative data collection and analysis, including coordinating and conducting site visits and managing the collection of site-level administrative data.

Kate Greene is a project director with extensive experience in planning and implementing complex donor-funded health programs in health systems, global health security, human resources for health, and HIV/AIDS. Her diverse experience includes managing and overseeing health professional regulation and accreditation activities in Cote d’Ivoire, Eswatini, Haiti, and Jordan; designing and managing Ebola preparedness efforts in Guinea; and providing technical oversight to Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) initiatives in Cote d’Ivoire, including the development of the country’s first National Health Security Plan.

Meghan Lynch, Sc.D., is an accomplished manager of cross-disciplinary teams, with 20 years of experience specializing in toxicology and human health risk assessment. She is skilled at interpreting, evaluating, and communicating toxicological and epidemiological information for hazardous substances. She has managed a variety of projects for ATSDR, OSHA, EPA, and nonprofit agencies. These include leading tasks requiring the synthesis of toxicological information and risk assessments, and performing both probabilistic and benchmark dose modeling. The results of these projects have been subject to peer review. Lynch has also provided memorandums and analyses supporting risk assessments and addressing industry comments, which have been used to support plaintiffs in litigation for chemical contaminants.