Su Liu

Su Liu’s research focuses on access, cost, and quality issues for programs that serve vulnerable populations, such as people with low income, older adults, people with disabilities, and the uninsured in the United States.

Since joining Mathematica in 2003, Liu has played key roles in state- and federally funded projects, including an evaluation of the Medicaid 1115 demonstration, development of data analytics for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Business Information Solutions, risk adjustment for quality measure development, and technical assistance for states’ coverage expansion initiatives and spending projections. She is currently leading the task to design and conduct a second national evaluation of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Money Follows the Person demonstration. She recently directed a project to help the Financial Management Group at the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services collect, review, and analyze data from states; this project was part of a Medicaid oversight effort related to upper-payment-limit demonstrations and supplemental provider payment.

Several of Liu’s current projects involve data quality assessment and construction of program monitoring measures using the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System Analytic File. Past projects include Mathematica’s large-scale evaluation of the Ticket to Work initiatives and the Medicaid Buy-In program.

Liu has published work in peer-reviewed journals such as Inquiry, Health Policy and Planning, and the Journal of Disability Policy Studies. She has presented at professional conferences sponsored by AcademyHealth, the American Public Health Association, and the International Health Economics Association. Before rejoining Mathematica in 2015, Liu was also a faculty member at the School of Public Health and Primary Care at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford’s Health Economics Research Centre. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Irvine.