Olena Stavrunova is an Associate Professor in the Economics Discipline Group at UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney. She has over 15 years of research experience in health economics and econometrics, with a particular focus on understanding how health policies, healthcare system settings, and external shocks influence health-related behaviours, healthcare use, and economic outcomes.

Her research has examined a range of health policy issues in Australia and the United States, including elective surgery waiting times and their effects on healthcare use and private health insurance, socioeconomic inequalities in access to healthcare, the influence of policy settings on private health insurance uptake, and the health and economic impacts of natural disasters in Australia. She has extensive expertise in the analysis of Australian healthcare data and has contributed to several research projects examining elective surgery waiting times, including as a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project.

Olena has published in leading international journals. Her research has received several prestigious awards, including the Aigner Award for the best paper in empirical econometrics published in the Journal of Econometrics and the Australian Health Economics Society Research Prize for the best Australian health economics paper. 

In addition to her research, Olena has held several academic leadership and management roles at UTS, including Acting Head and Deputy Head of the Economics Discipline Group and Program Director of the Bachelor of Economics.