Dr. Shelby M. Hockenberry

Program Director, healthcare delivery

Dr. Shelby M. Hockenberry serves as program director for healthcare delivery in the NGA Center for Best Practices. In her role at NGA, Dr. Hockenberry manages the healthcare delivery portfolio which encompasses healthcare workforce and provider licensure, ACEs and trauma, healthcare costs and coverage, and projects related to health equity. She also previously directed substance use and mental health projects at NGA including the policy academy on stimulant and polysubstance use and workshops on improving access to treatment for those under community supervision.

Prior to joining NGA, Dr. Hockenberry spent many years engaged in various facets of health and healthcare systems. For the past decade, Dr. Hockenberry’s work centered on health care costs and payment, health insurance and coverage, healthcare financing, and pharmaceutical issues during her time as a consultant and on the public policy team at Independence Blue Cross where her portfolio included the opioid crisis response, pharmaceutical issues, and ACA implementation and marketplace coverage policy.

Dr. Hockenberry spent a decade in academia, first as a policy researcher then as a professor of political science, where she focused her research on the role of international organizations in health policy, healthcare costs, and the financing of global health initiatives. Dr. Hockenberry’s work has taken her around the world, having spent many years traveling throughout Europe and Asia studying healthcare access issues and the health effects of climate change. Her research has been presented at many international forums including the United Nations, and she has served as a key investigator on grants from UN agencies, various national and state governments, and major foundations.

Dr. Hockenberry began her career in Washington as an analyst for a state government affairs firm and with the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. While at NASMHPD, she was a key researcher on several projects including the landmark Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project, a groundbreaking national initiative coordinated by the Council of State Governments to improve the criminal justice system’s response to individuals affected by mental health issues, and a grant from SAMHSA that partnered with leading behavioral health organizations to provide technical assistance to state and local behavioral health systems.

Dr. Hockenberry earned her Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Delaware where her dissertation focused on the role of public-private partnerships through the evolution of policy paradigms when addressing global policy issues. She also holds Master’s degrees from the University of Delaware and Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s degree from Gettysburg College.

Dr. Hockenberry hails from Virginia and has also lived in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Arizona.