Riti Shimkhada, PhD, is a senior research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, where she leads study design, analyses, and scientific writing across a broad portfolio of health policy research. Her work spans health and social disparities, immigrant and global health, and state-level health policy, with a particular emphasis on California.

A central focus of Dr. Shimkhada's research is the disaggregation of race and ethnicity data in large population-based surveys, and she is an expert on data disaggregation legislation in California and across other states. She has examined how policy actions, the physical and social environment, and population health outcomes intersect. Dr. Shimkhada brings expertise in analyzing the costs and impacts of health policy across multiple levels of government, from state health benefit mandates to federal guidance on data collection to health impacts felt at the local and community level.

Her peer-reviewed publications have appeared in the fields of health policy, international and environmental health, and social epidemiology. She received her PhD in epidemiology from UCLA, with an emphasis on health services research.