Mark Holmes, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. He received his BS in Mathematics and Economics (with Honors) from Michigan State University and his PhD from the Department of Economics at UNC-Chapel Hill. His interests include hospital finance, rural health, health policy, workforce, and patient-centered outcomes research, particularly in delivery systems and musculoskeletal conditions. He is also the Director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center, a Senior Research Fellow and the Program on Health Care Economics and Finance Co-Director at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Previously, he was Vice President of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, where he gained experience in North Carolina health policy. He currently serves on the board of the North Carolina Health Insurance Risk Pool and is a member of advisory boards and committees to multiple programs in North Carolina. His state policy work led to his 2010 Health Care Hero "Rising Star" award from the Triangle Business Journal. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Rural Health and the NCMJ.