Join Us for a Virtual Information Session About Our Online Master of Healthcare Administration Program

Laura Erskine is professor of health policy and management, director of the MHA program and director of the UCLA Center for Healthcare Management. Prior to taking a leadership role in the MHA program, Dr. Erskine spent nine years as the director of the MPH in Health Policy and Management. Dr. Erskine is committed to professional education and professional development. In addition to teaching in all three HPM professional programs (MHA, MPH, EMPH), she encourages student participation in case competitions and provides many professional development opportunities to students. In May of 2019 she became a founding co-director of the UCLA Center for Healthcare Management. The Center’s goal is to provide a home for practitioners and scholars interested in a wide variety of issues that touch on management in the healthcare context. She has expanded the global health footprint of the department by introducing a course that gives students the opportunity to attend the World Health Assembly in Geneva and she has made changes to the MPH curriculum that will enable students to deepen their expertise in an area of interest to them. Her scholarly writing has also had an impact on the educational program by increasing the use of case-based instruction in the classroom and developing new case studies. Her research interests include the meaning of relational distance in leader-follower relationships, leadership in virtual settings, classroom pedagogy and emergent leadership in the context of collective action. She has published her research in a variety of academic and practitioner journals and presented her research at several national and regional conferences. In addition, she is actively involved with the Organizational Behavior Division and the Network of Leadership Scholars within the Academy of Management. Dr. Erskine’s teaching interests are in the area of healthcare, organizational behavior, leadership and decision-making. She uses real world examples and situations, experiential activities, field-based cases and simulations to help students develop their decision-making and problem solving skills, hone their communication and interpersonal skills, apply theories and the concepts, and further their critical thinking skills. She can highlight theories and concepts with personal examples from her background in strategic consulting, entrepreneurial activities, field-based research and case writing activities. Following her MBA studies, she worked as a management consultant for A.T. Kearney and in a variety of marketing and strategy roles at Disney Online and FirstLook.com. Prior to her doctoral studies, Dr. Erskine participated in the creation of Eureka Review, a Los Angeles-based SAT tutoring company. Before joining UCLA in 2013, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods in the College of Business at Illinois State University. Dr. Erskine received her PhD in Business Administration from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and her MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

As a program representative, Arayael works with potential students to answer questions and help them through the admissions process. She has several years of experience in higher education and holds a BA in Human Service Studies from Elon University and an MA in International Education and Human Development from The George Washington University.

Jenna Mendoza is the student affairs officer for the UCLA MHA program. As student affairs officer, Jenna works with the MHA students to assist them with program inquiries throughout their time as MHA students. Jenna obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Loyola Marymount University and went on to earn a master’s in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University.