Biography:

Dr. Talar Markossian joined the Jiann-Ping Hsu School of Public Health at Georgia Southern University in the fall of 2009 after receiving her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Administration from the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her MPH in Health Services Administration from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Dr. Markossian’s research interests are in racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in chronic disease management, patient navigation, cost-effectiveness analysis, and in applying econometric and quantitative research methods to program evaluation and policy analysis.

Dr. Markossian’s dissertation was part of a project funded by the National Cancer Institute to study the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of patient navigators in improving breast cancer outcomes. Dr. Markossian has extensive experience in working with large datasets including the CDC’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) data and the Medicare Claims data. Dr. Markossian also has experience in advanced statistical techniques including the Markov model for disease progression, the Rasch model, which is a tool to construct and evaluate measurement scales in the social and behavioral sciences, and longitudinal data analysis in addition to some experience in qualitative research.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Markossian was clinical department administrator for the Department of Pediatrics at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, Lebanon. She was involved in the Burden of Disease study supported by the World Health Organization. Other projects that Dr. Markossian has been involved with include evaluating the costs of various treatment options for cancer treatment and urinary disease management, and evaluating the cost-benefit of social welfare programs.

Dr. Markossian teaches Public Health Research Methods (PHLD 9130), Health Informatics and Decision Making (PHLD 9231), and Health Policy, Regulation and Ethics (PHLD 9331).

Dr. Markossian is member of the American Public Health Association. In her free time, she enjoys all sorts of sporting activities, classical music, and exploring various cultures.