Leadership and Team Science: Promoting Team Effectiveness

About the Speakers

Erin Abu-Rish Blakeney, PhD, RN is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics at the UW School of Nursing. She is a co-lead of the UW ITHS Team Science Core and has nearly 15 years of experience as a health professions and health services researcher in developing, implementing, and testing team approaches to interdisciplinary education, healthcare, and research. Dr. Blakeney earned her first bachelor’s degree in Politics and Environmental Studies from Whitman College, a second bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University, and a master’s degree in International Education from New York University focusing on cross-cultural exchange and training. She earned her PhD in Nursing Science Statistics from the University of Washington and she is currently in the third year of a 3-year NHLBI-funded K12 career development program focused on implementation science. Dr. Blakeney’s program of research is motivated by the understanding that how teams work together influences production of new knowledge and translation of research into practice along the entire classroom to bench to bedside spectrum. Her current areas of research interest include: (1) identifying best practices and promising models for improving interdisciplinary team dynamics and outcomes; (2) understanding mechanisms of action connecting the quality of interdisciplinary team communication and relationships with team effectiveness and outcomes; (3) discovering strategies to implement and sustain team science training and best practices for individuals and teams carrying out interdisciplinary translational research and practice.

Brenda K. Zierler, PhD, RN, FAAN is a Professor of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the University of Washington School of Nursing. Dr. Zierler’s research explores the relationships between the delivery of health care and outcomes—at both the patient and system level. Her primary appointment is in the School of Nursing at the University of Washington (UW), but she holds three adjunct appointments – two in the School of Medicine and one in the School of Public Health. She currently leads a HRSA training grant focused on an education-practice partnership between UW School of Nursing and Kaiser Permanente-Washington designed to recruit and train nursing students and current RNs to practice at the full scope of their license in interprofessional ambulatory care teams. Dr. Zierler is co-lead of the Team Science Core for UW’s Institute for Translational Health Sciences (CTSA). She is the Director of Research and Training for the UW Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Practice and Research.  Dr. Zierler chairs the PhD Coordinating Committee for the School of Nursing at the UW and co-leads the re-envisioning of a competency-based PhD program that will start in 2020. She is a past member of the Institute of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professions Education.