Prof. Roland Sturm is a Senior Economist at RAND and Professor of Policy Analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy, specializing in statistics and econometrics. He has authored 200 scientific publications, frequently testified in legislative hearings, and was recognized among the world’s most influential scientists. In 2024, he was a Fulbright Distinguished Fellow in public health data science in Brazil. Sturm has worked with big data for 30 years. His research includes integrating supermarket transactions, credit card data, and health insurance claims to assess healthy food discounts in South Africa. He develops microsimulation models to evaluate health and economic outcomes related to diet, obesity, physical activity, and diabetes.

Outside work, he organizes music concerts in National Parks, including the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest, and leads jam sessions. A passionate mountain biker, he has ridden the 4,500 km Continental Divide Mountain Bike Route from Mexico to Canada and the 1,600 km German Divide Route. Roland Sturm has long been based at the RAND Corporation, a think tank that conducted landmark studies like the RAND Health Insurance Experiment and the Medical Outcomes Study, for which Sturm coauthored a book. Thirty-two Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the RAND Corporation at some point of their career.