Our Board

Rendelle Bolton, PhD, is a a co-investigator at VA's Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research. She uses multiple methods to investigate the implementation and coordination of person-centered approaches in healthcare from a multilevel systems perspective. Her goals are to understand how organizational and system contexts inform implementation of culturally transformative healthcare initiatives, influence interdisciplinary coordination for complex conditions such as chronic pain, and contribute to interpersonal dynamics within patient-provider relationships. Dr. Bolton is particularly interested in how relational coordination can inform implementation of complex multicomponent initiatives in healthcare, and be a lens through which to understand patient-centered care coordination for patients with complex needs.

Jody Hoffer Gittell is a Professor of Management at Brandeis University's Heller School, Faculty Director of the Relational Coordination Collaborative, and CEO and Co-Founder of Relational Coordination Analytics.  Gittell developed Relational Coordination Theory, proposing that highly interdependent work is most effectively coordinated through networks of shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect, supported by frequent, timely, accurate, problem-solving communication. The Relational Model of Change shows how structural, relational and work process interventions can strengthen those networks. Gittell has published dozens of scientific articles and multiple books including The Southwest Airlines Way; High Performance Healthcare; Sociology of Organizations; Transforming Relationships for High Performance; and Relational Analytics: Guidelines for Analysis and Action.  Dr. Gittell currently serves on the Executive Council of the Seacoast NAACP, on the board of trustees for Greater Seacoast Community Health, on the executive board of the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management, and on the Brandeis University Faculty Senate. She received her PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Darren works as a Principal Advisor, Clinical Teaming, at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Services in Australia. In this role, Darren plans and implements a range of hospital-based initiatives to improve the efficiency of care delivery. His work includes applying Relational Coordination to improve how individuals and groups work together to coordinate the provision of clinical care within the hospital that he works.  

Darren worked as Registered Nurse for over 10 years before turning to health improvement project work 15 years ago. He has a Bachelor of Nursing Science and a Master of Public Health, and is competing a PhD part-time at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. His PhD thesis examines how contextual factors such as the economy, professions, and gendered work affects the implementation of a Relational Coordination designed to improve patient centred care.   

Ingrid M. Nembhard, Ph.D., M.S., is the Fishman Family President’s Distinguished Professor, Professor of Health Care Management, and Professor of Management (Organizational Behavior) at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on how characteristics of health care organizations, their leaders, and staff contribute to their ability to implement new practices, engage in continuous organizational learning, and ultimately improve quality of care. She uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine health care delivery from provider and patient perspectives, and to evaluate organizational performance. Her research has provided and continues to provide insights about how health care leaders manage change, the role of psychological safety in organizations, teamwork within and across organizations, strategies for improving patient experience, and organizational efforts to learn new clinical and operational practices. 

Prior to joining the faculty at the The Wharton School, she was the Ira V. Hiscock Tenured Associate Professor at Yale School of Public Health, Associate Professor at Yale School of Management, and Associate Director of the Health Care Management Program at Yale. Dr. Nembhard received her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management, with a concentration in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University through a joint program between Harvard Business School and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She received her M.S. in Health Policy and Management from Harvard University School of Public Health, and her B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics and in Psychology from Yale University.

Wale Olaleye is a Pharmacist, a Human Capital Consultant for Deloitte, a Consultant for Relational Coordination Analytics, and a Visiting Scholar at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He received a PhD in Social Policy at The Heller School, an MBA with a focus on Health Systems Management from the Charlton College of Business at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and his Pharmacy degree from the University of Ibadan Nigeria. Olaleye studied interprofessional teams at Beth Israel Lahey Medical Center in Boston where he identified workforce diversity as an impediment to effective communication and relationship building between and within teams. His dissertation focused on the use of Relational Coordination principles to uncover professional and social identity-related discrimination on health care teams. 

He now serves as Co-Principal Investigator on Relating Across Differences - An Improvement Process for Clinical Units, funded by the Josiah Macy Foundation, implementing the results of his research in three U.S. health systems over a three-year period. Prior to joining the Heller School, he worked at Steward Health Care System of Massachusetts and Care New England Corporate of Rhode Island as a Hospital Manager. He has also worked as a Clinical Pharmacist at government-owned hospitals in Abuja, Nigeria. His research interests include team-based care, diversity equity and belonging, opioid policy, performance of healthcare organizations and issues related to the healthcare workforce.