Celebrating postgraduate success 2025

Posted on Tuesday 12 May 2026

Three PhD researchers successfully completed their PhDs in 2025, adding important contributions to the field of health economics.

Wei Song completed his PhD in July 2025. His thesis, The Aftershock: Examining the Mental Health Impact of Acute Physical Health Events, explored how acute physical health shocks influence subsequent mental health service use and outcomes using causal inference methods. His supervisors were Professor Rowena Jacobs and Dr Panos Kasteridis. Wei is now part of CHE’s Health and Social Care Policy team, where he will continue to develop his research expertise.

Kristina Aluzaite, affiliated with the Economic Evaluation team during her PhD, successfully completed her PhD in December 2025. Her thesis, Economic Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Interventions, provides valuable insights into how complex and uncertain intervention effects can be quantified and considered to support decision-making. Her supervisors were Dr Beth Woods, Professor Marta Soares and Professor Catherine Hewitt. Kristina is currently working with the IMPACT-AMR research network, with a continued focus on the prioritisation of AMR interventions.

Newton Chagoma completed his PhD in December 2025. He was part of the Global Health team. His thesis, Pathways to Universal Health Coverage: The Role of Development Assistance for Health in Low-and Middle-Income Countries, focused on analysing health system efficiencies with a particular focus on the effectiveness of development aid in Sub-Saharan Africa. His supervisors were Dr Sumit Mazumdar and Professor Marc Suhrcke. 

CHE congratulates Wei, Kristina and Newton on their outstanding achievements and looks forward to following their future contributions to health economics research and policy.

Interested in joining CHE as a doctoral researcher? Explore our current PhD studentship opportunities here.