Tamar Klaiman, PhD, MPH

Director Qualitative Methods, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine

Courses Taught

PUBH 5060 Methods for Public Health Practice

Ask Me About

Punk Rock, Parenting Tweens, & Cooking

Brief Bio

I am a skilled public health research and evaluation leader and administrator with over 10 years of experience designing, implementing, and disseminating mixed methods and qualitative public health research studies. While my research has spanned multiple topic areas in public health and health service research, I have consistently worked as a qualitative methodologist, most recently supporting inquiries in behavioral economics, end of life and serious illness, implementation science, and health equity. This work has led to multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals. In 2016, I left academia to work in the non-profit sector during which I led an internal evaluation and research team at a public health non-profit agency. This work allowed me to bolster my project management and leadership skills; although we did not publish on the work we conducted. I have since returned to an academic environment, and I am using my management and research skills to oversee qualitative research in a variety of health-related areas as Director of Qualitative Methods at both the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research (PAIR) Center and Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE). Through this appointment, I have served as the qualitative lead on several projects including the grant titled, ‘Behavioral Economics to Transform Trial Enrollment Representativeness (BETTER) Center’ that seeks to develop and test behavioral economic interventions that surmount barriers to RCT participation faced by racial and ethnic minority patients, women, and rural populations, with or at risk for cardiovascular disease. I am also working in collaboration with Dr. Rebecca Clark on a project titled “Using Implementation Science Methods to Understand the Contribution of Communication Failures to Diagnostic Errors and the Impact on Racial Disparities in Severe Maternal Morbidity.” I have additionally mentored public health Masters and Doctoral students with a particular focus on overseeing and guiding the use of qualitative methods in health related research.