Remembering Grace Carter (Cohort '70)

November 30, 2018

One of our first alumni, Grace M. Carter passed away on November 8. She was a senior policy analyst in RAND’s Santa Monica office from 1968 to 1998, a member of the original cohort at the RAND Graduate Institute (now Pardee RAND), and among the first students to receive a Ph.D. from the school. After retiring, Carter continued her relationship with RAND in an adjunct capacity until 2006.

Over the years, Carter mentored many Pardee RAND students. Alum Donna Farley (cohort '89) shared her fond memories of Carter: "Throughout my health policy research career, I continued to be grateful for having known and been trained by Grace. A brilliant woman and natural mathematician, she was supportive of my development and expected excellence in my work. She was a kind, gentle person; I valued our ongoing friendship over the years."

Carter was a prolific researcher who began her career at RAND supporting a large-scale project for the New York City Fire Department that included modeling and simulating firefighting unit dispatching and resource allocation. She went on to apply her analytic capabilities to health care, exploring the impact of federally funded medical research and the procedures used by the National Institutes of Health to determine which programs to support, the use of computer simulations in treating cancer, and the market for cardiovascular research funding.

In the late 1980s, she modeled military force management and retention options and analyzed the capability-cost trade-offs involved in building European military forces that would be better prepared to operate independently of U.S. support. However, Carter's focus remained on health policy, and she contributed to several important studies of Medicare payment structures (including those for treatment for specific conditions, such as end-stage renal disease, cataracts, and hip fractures).

After retiring from RAND, Carter consulted for several foreign governments, assisting them in setting up health care payment systems. She was recognized for her work on health care financing through several national awards from professional organizations in that field.

In her free time, Carter enjoyed traveling and had visited more than 40 countries, as well as hiking, skiing, church, playing bridge, cooking, and Irish music. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association to support research.