As an applied economist, Bae’s research lies at the intersection of public finance and health economics. “I was drawn to economics because I loved the idea of employing theoretical tools or regression models to study the impacts of health policy on individuals, families, and the whole health care sector,” she said.

Bae obtained her bachelor’s (2017) and master’s (2018) degrees in economics, both from Sungkyunkwan University. Afterward, she decided to pursue a PhD in economics from the University of California, San Diego, which she completed in 2024.

Now, Bae is an assistant professor of economics at Michigan State University, as well as a postdoctoral scholar in the Stanford Department of Surgery and Stanford-Surgery Policy Improvement Research & Education (S-SPIRE) Center.

Bae was particularly drawn to Dr. Lisa Knowlton’s lab for two reasons:

First, Bae’s research interest paralleled the lab’s agenda. Specifically, Bae was interested in finding policies to improve the health outcomes of surgical patients, as well as using the public insurance program to help uninsured patients mitigate health disparities in the U.S.

Second, because Knowlton’s team spans clinicians, residents, qualitative researchers, and health economists, Bae said she “thought this interdisciplinary environment would really help me to expand my research agenda.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government implemented a continuous enrollment requirement in Medicaid, meaning states could not disenroll beneficiaries, even if they were no longer eligible. The continuous enrollment provision ended on March 31, 2023. Bae’s main focus in Knowlton’s lab is investigating this provision, and particularly its effects on low-income and uninsured individuals.

Also on Bae’s research agenda: improving the organ transfer allocation system through policy changes or reallocation systems, she said. For this project, Bae is seeking colleagues outside of the School of Medicine, such as in Economics and Management Science and Engineering.

“The interdisciplinary component is one of the most rewarding parts of my time at Stanford,” Bae said. “I was given the freedom to be able to talk to clinicians, especially health economists, on projects that involved physicians’ decisions on how to treat patients.”

Bae has appreciated “talking to the person who actually treats a patient in practice,” she said. When approaching a problem from her project and proposing a data-driven solution, it was exciting to be able to ask if her solution was consistent with what clinicians were doing in practice, she said.

Bae also noted the supportive environment at Stanford.

“Being a postdoctoral scholar, and a person who has just started their research career, it’s very important to get support from mentors,” Bae said. “I’m really grateful for getting support from Dr. Knowlton about how to think about my research agenda, how to initiate a project, and how to work collaboratively as a team.”

Going forward, Bae hopes to expand her research on the impact of health policies in alleviating health disparities in the U.S.

“I would love to also have research that could actually impact the lives of the patients,” she said.