Jagpreet Chhatwal

Dr. Chhatwal is an assistant professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and a decision scientist at MGH Institute for Technology Assessment (ITA). His research focuses on the application of operations research methods to improve clinical decision-making and inform health policies. He leads health outcomes and disease modeling research in multiple disease areas including hepatitis C, hepatocellular carcinoma, liver transplantation, leukemia, anal cancer, and breast cancer.

Dr. Chhatwal's research on breast cancer diagnosis showed how operations research methods can improve biopsy decision-making after mammography exams. This work won multiple awards including a best junior faculty paper and best student paper from the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. His research on hepatitis C modeling has made a direct impact on defining hepatitis C screening and treatment policies. His work on the cost and impact new hepatitis C treatment was featured by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, NPR, The Washington Post, and CNBC.

In addition, his research interests include advancement of decision-analytic methods used for medical decision-making. Dr. Chhatwal regularly teaches methods-oriented workshops at the annual meetings of the Society for Medical Decision Making and International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. He serves as a cost-effectiveness and decision anlalysis editor to the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and is also an editorial board member of Medical Decision Making.

Prior to joining the ITA, Dr. Chhatwal worked as a health economist for Merck Research Laboratories and was a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and MD Anderson Cancer Center. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, India in 2001. He then pursued a Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering at Iowa State University in 2004, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering, focusing on operations research, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008. He won 2nd place prize in George Dantzig dissertation award, a prestigious award for the best dissertation in any area of operations research and management science that is innovative and relevant to practice.