Two New Doctoral Students Join the Chair of Health Economics, Policy, and Management

Since this fall, Martina Vecchione and Marco Samori have been part of the team at the Chair of Health Economics, Policy, and Management at the School of Medicine as PhD candidates. Both share a strong interest in causal inference and data-driven methods, which they will contribute to the Chair’s health economics research.

Martina Vecchione earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. She is currently completing her master’s degree in Economics at the University of St. Gallen. Her interests lie in the areas of causal inference, machine learning, and statistics, particularly in the application of quantitative methods to real-world problems. Outside of research, she enjoys being active, such as hiking, biking, or playing tennis.

Marco Samori recently completed the Advanced Master’s in Economics (MASE) at KU Leuven. In his master’s thesis, he developed a double machine learning estimator for dynamic panel data. Prior to that, he earned a master’s degree in Statistics from the University of Bologna, spent an exchange semester at ENSAE Paris, and worked for a year as a pre-doctoral researcher at CREST in Paris, where he specialized in nonparametric instrumental variable estimation. His research lies at the intersection of statistical modeling and applied econometrics, with a focus on causal machine learning and methods of policy evaluation in the health and labor market sectors. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, running, and rock climbing, or reading a good book.

We warmly welcome Martina Vecchione and Marco Samori and wish them a successful start in St. Gallen.