Alumni Profile: Tegan Brace, DPSS’24

Before Tegan Brace, DPSS’24, found her career path in healthcare, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design from Appalachian State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “The connection between my education and career,” she observed, “is in the shared critical thinking, focus on intentionality, and creativity.” 

Brace said a critical moment in her healthcare career was when she joined Patient Pattern, a small healthcare software startup, as the Director of Customer Success—and quickly advanced to Vice President of Customer Success. “I saw how my creativity could translate to my role and supported collaboration with providers in care management. When I learned more about the opportunities for innovation in the healthcare industry, I joined Pareto Intelligence, which provides healthcare data analytics to health plans and provider groups. It has been rewarding to see how much creativity is built into guiding the development of a product.” 

Brace’s interest in The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Data and Policy Summer Scholar (DPSS) program was inspired by her growing interest in healthcare technology. “DPSS provided an opportunity to gain some of the core competencies offered through Harris’ focus on rigorous quantitative analysis, and tackling quant was a great opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone.” 

Brace said the capstone project was the highlight of her DPSS experience, due in part to the fact that she was selected to present her capstone project live. “My project explored the relationship between environmental data and health outcomes in Chicago, and presenting it encouraged me to conduct additional exploratory analysis and evaluation—which really kept my momentum going. It also reinforced that research and analysis is something I have an aptitude for—and can excel at. Presenting my capstone project also helped me apply what I learned to my work as a product manager, since I work with data scientists and coordinate different projects with machine learning algorithms.” 

During DPSS, Brace also took advantage of almost every extracurricular opportunity available. “I attended numerous guest speaker events and workshops with TAs and Professors Austin L. Wright and Jeff Levy. My cohort placed a lot of emphasis on networking and creating community, so I wanted to be sure I managed my time well.” 

Another bonus of DPSS, Tegan said, was it broadened her perspective on healthcare policy. “At Pareto Intelligence, we focus on risk adjustment and regulatory adherence. DPSS made me think about policy through a much wider lens, such as its geographic and environmental impacts as they relate to social determinants of health. The interconnected web of policy is vast—it’s almost like six degrees of separation: with a few connections, you can pull small details together and see how they affect one another.” 

Tegan said after completing DPSS, she is still excited about risk adjustment and policies around that topic. “Actuarial risk models drive many healthcare government programs today. There can be an emphasis on care while navigating the risk adjustment world. Value-based care programs can support health plans to ensure quality care is still being delivered while risk adjustment ensures reimbursement for those individuals. There’s also so much opportunity to improve healthcare delivery, and by innovating policy, we can continue to get stronger in terms of the care we provide.”