Sean Sylvia

Sean Sylvia, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. As a health and development economist, Dr. Sylvia’s research focuses on designing and evaluating innovative approaches to improve the delivery of health services in developing countries. In past and ongoing projects, he has studied the design of performance-based incentives for providers, the implementation of school-based health and nutrition programs, community health worker interventions to improve early childhood health and development, and the measurement of and interventions to improve the quality of primary care in low-resource settings.

Fluent in Mandarin, Dr. Sylvia has long-standing collaborations with researchers at a number of universities in China where he has directed several large-scale surveys and randomized trials. Prior to joining UNC, he worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China. He also previously worked for the World Bank and was a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Dr. Sylvia received his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.

Interests

• Health systems in China and other middle-income countries
• Mechanism design applications to healthcare delivery
• Behavioral Economics
• Economics of digital health

EDUCATION

• BA, Economics and International Studies, University of Alabama, 2006
• MS, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, 2012
• PhD, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, 2014

AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS

• 2018 Rising Scholar Best Paper Award, China Health Policy and Management Society
• 2007 Fulbright Fellowship, U.S. Student Program, China
• 2006 Phi Beta Kappa
• 2006 Undergraduate Research Award, University of Alabama
• 2006 Murray Haven Award in Economics, University of Alabama