Maria Peña is a Senior Policy Analyst with KFF’s Program on Medicare Policy and Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured where she focuses primarily on policy research related to Medicare-Medicaid enrollees.

Maria comes to KFF from the World Health Organization where she conducted economic and policy analysis related to health financing. She focused on assessing the financial risk related to out-of-pocket payments and on tracking health spending across countries. She recently completed her PhD, and in her dissertation research examined the association of telemental health use and Medicare spending. Maria holds a PhD in Health Economics from the University of Texas School of Public Health, MSc in Economics from University College London and a BA in Economics and International Relations from the University of California, Davis.