Julie C. Lai, MPH

Contributing Consultant — Causal Inference & Policy Analytics

Julie Lai is a data scientist with 18+ years designing causal and quasi-experimental analyses that have directly shaped U.S. federal healthcare policy — including findings that contributed to CMS's cancellation of a $4.5B national program, and measurement frameworks underlying $12–13B in annual Medicare Advantage quality payments.

She specializes in translating complex, ambiguous analysis into evidence used directly in CMS and Congressional briefings and peer-reviewed publications, for audiences ranging from technical reviewers to legislators. Julie is skilled at determining which metrics faithfully represent an organization's impact to external stakeholders, and at owning the pipelines and dashboards that keep externally-shared numbers consistent.

Julie currently serves as Associate Director of Data Science & Technology at RAND Corporation, where she leads a 20-person data science and engineering function and serves as task lead for federal program evaluations, including CMS's Medicare Advantage Star Ratings and the VBID model evaluation. She partners with Aperio on select engagements requiring rigorous causal inference and policy-grade measurement design.

Julie holds an MPH in Biostatistics from Drexel University and a BA in Biology and Society from Cornell University. She is fluent in Mandarin and Taiwanese and proficient in Spanish.

Dr. Meg Schaeffer, EdD, MPH, MPA

Founder & CEO

Dr. Meg Schaeffer is an epidemiologist and public health leader with more than 20 years of experience translating evidence into action for governments, health systems, and the public. Her career spans state government, managed care, academia, and global advisory work using epidemiologic methods to inform policy, drive decisions, and protect population health.

She previously served as the Global Health Advisor at SAS, where she led engagements with over 70 government agencies worldwide, focusing on the Middle East, Asia, and the U.S. — bringing technical solution development, statistical programming, and visualization expertise to public health and healthcare data challenges.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Schaeffer brought her epidemiologic and analytic knowledge into Medicaid, serving as Director of Clinical Informatics at AmeriHealth Caritas and Vice President of Quality and Performance Improvement at Meridian Health Plan, where she led clinical data science and quality teams, managed multi-million-dollar budgets, and directed HEDIS- and NCQA-based quality reporting across multiple state Medicaid markets.

A frequent delegate to national advisory councils and a regular international media resource, Dr. Schaeffer is a sought-after public speaker and published author, with peer-reviewed work in journals including JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine. Her contributions to public health have been recognized with the John F. Stanford Award from the Iowa Medical Society and two Charles C. Shepard Science Award nominations from the CDC.

In 2020, Dr. Schaeffer founded Aperio Statistical Consulting, where she serves as CEO and senior consultant to organizations including the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Association of Public Health Veterinarians, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Under Aperio, she authored the Zoonotic Influenza Reference Guide and led multi-year projects to improve COVID-19 and influenza surveillance.

Outside of her professional work, Dr. Schaeffer has competed for Team USA in triathlon since 2018.