Amanda "Mandi" Spishak-Thomas is a Medicaid research scholar at the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy where she researches Medicaid and its impacts on low-income patients and their families in New Jersey. Mandi's research understands health policies as wealth policies, examining how health insurance provides scaffolding for low-income families. Mandi received her PhD from the Columbia School of Social Work and has her license in clinical social work (LCSW) from California.