The University of New Mexico School of Public Administration (SPA) has named Kun Huang as coordinator for its Master of Health Administration degree program. College of Arts & Sciences Dean Mark Peceny announced the appointment and noted that Huang is the first ever coordinator for the program.
Huang will chair the health administration program faculty committee, advance the proposed curricular changes through the UNM curriculum approval process, help schedule courses for the MHA degree program, organize orientation sessions for new students, help advise students in the program, and seek internship opportunities for those students.
Huang has been a professor of Public Administration since 2006, joining the SPA faculty in 2008. He is a Senior Fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at UNM and received his Ph.D. in Management from the University of Arizona in 2005. His research uses organization theory and network analysis to study health and human services networks.
Huang is a member of the Academy of Management, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, and Public Management Research Association. His accomplishments include publishing “Knowledge Sharing in a Third-Party Governed Health and Human Services Network,” in the Public Administration Review. His paper also won the Best Paper Award of the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.
The Master of Health Administration (MHA) program fills an important labor market and educational need in New Mexico and the southwest by providing professional education for leadership careers in healthcare administration. Healthcare organizations statewide worked with the SPA to develop the MHA program. The shared aim is to develop effective executives and informed health policy advisors.
The MHA curriculum responds to the particular needs of our region by addressing issues and concerns related to Hispanics, Native Americans, and rural health care that are built into the curriculum.