KD Frick (any pronouns) is a professor who teaches economics for decision-making, business leadership and human values, frameworks for analyzing health care markets, and a course on how the U.S. health care system in the past, present, and future facilitates innovation.
Frick studied health policy and administration at Penn State, followed by economics and health services research at the University of Michigan. In 1996, she joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she still has joint appointments. She moved to a leadership position at the Carey Business School in 2013 and returned to an exclusively faculty role in 2021.
Much of Frick’s research focuses on measuring costs associated with diseases or measuring the cost-effectiveness of new treatments, care systems, or community-based interventions. The most focused area has been public and private eye care, and she co-chaired a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine workgroup on myopia. In addition, she co-chaired an AcademyHealth project on health services research’s inclusivity, impact, and innovation. She focuses on research translation, specializing in linking peer-reviewed research with the information business leaders need to make decisions about companies that operate in the real-world marketplace. She plans for future research to focus on mentoring, leadership, and DEIB issues.
Frick has mentored students, faculty, and staff, and spoken about mentoring to many audiences—particularly mentoring as a two-way street. She has focused on DEIB issues as a member of a team that produced a series of videos about LGBTQ+ Narratives in Academia, as part of a second team that produced a video called Business of Pronouns, by serving on the school’s Inclusive Teaching committee as well as the university’s Diversity Leadership Council, by reading names at graduation for more than a decade, and by serving on committees related to diversity for multiple professional associations.
