Elizabeth Lukanen, MPH
Deputy Director

Ms. Lukanen serves as the Deputy Director for SHADAC, overseeing center research and providing strategic direction and oversight.  With 20 years of experience in the health policy arena, Ms. Lukanen specializes in managing complex projects and translating quantitative findings into actionable, policy-relevant information. Ms. Lukanen currently oversees SHADAC’s technical assistance to states in the areas of data use, analysis, and evaluation. In this capacity, she manages SHADAC’s work with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) State Health & Value Strategies (SHVS) project, providing technical assistance to state policymakers and Medicaid agencies on a variety of topics, including: innovative data solutions to inform insurance exchange outreach efforts; designing evaluations to meet 1115 evaluation requirements, monitor program and policy interventions; filling gaps in data on social determinants of health; measuring health disparities and efforts to enhance health equity; monitoring eligibility and enrollment performance; and designing analysis and modeling to inform coverage and access policy such as the continuous coverage unwinding.

Ms. Lukanen also serves as the Principal investigator on a project that provides on-demand technical assistance, data analysis and statistical modeling to inform Medicaid policy for the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) using a wide variety of federal surveys.

In these roles, she is vocal about the importance of collecting and reporting disaggregated data to explore issues related to health equity, while actively working with policymakers to improve data on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Before joining SHADAC, Ms. Lukanen served as a Senior Research Economist at the Minnesota Department of Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from McGill University and a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University.