Heidi Allen, a nonresident fellow in the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute, is associate dean for research and an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Columbia University. At Urban, she collaborates with the health and health care team on evidence-based strategies that advance equity and improve health for all.

Allen’s research focuses on eliminating health disparities through evidence-based health policy and evolved from her clinical practice in mental health and emergency department social work. She spent several years working in state health policy, focusing on delivery system redesign and coverage expansions. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, and others.

Allen was a 2014–15 American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in health and aging policy and was a 2017 speaker at TEDMED. She was awarded the 2019 Social Policy Researcher Award from the Society for Social Work and Research. Currently, Allen is a commissioner on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission and a contributing writer at the Milbank Quarterly.