She received her Ph.D. in economics in 2008 from Columbia University, where she also received an M.A. and M.Phil. She came to Tufts from the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University in Sweden, where she was an assistant professor of economics. Simeonova’s fields of study are applied microeconomics, health economics and the economics of aging and retirement. In particular, she has been researching causes of the racial mortality gap and the effects of marriage on the survival of the chronically ill. Her most recent projects investigate the effects of hospital charity care on infant health and the effects of natural disasters on pregnancy outcomes.