INSciTS Board of Directors

Heather Billings, Ph.D., MA

President

Heather Billings, Ph.D., is Director of Faculty Development for Mayo Clinic College and Science, Administrative Lead for Team Science Education and Training for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and Course Director for Strategies for Success in Team Science in the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Specific to team science Heather is actively involved in the development, application and evaluation of methodologies to increase multidisciplinary team cognition and outcomes. Recent work has involved referencing conceptual frameworks to guide the identification and delivery of “just in time” team science education and resources to advance multidisciplinary effectiveness and outcomes across disciplines and organizational boundaries. She is currently working with the CTSA Team Affinity group to develop and disseminate a framework of individual and team competencies through which to guide education and training as well as assessment and evaluation processes. Heather has served as Co-Host for the 2016 SciTS conference, Chair of the Evaluation Committee 2018-2020, Chair of InSciTS Special Interest Groups, Member of InSciTS Membership Committee and member of its annual conference 2017-2020.

Stephen M. Fiore, Ph.D.

Immediate Past President

[email protected]

Wayne T. McCormack

Vice President

[email protected]

Dr. Wayne T. McCormack is a Distinguished Teaching Scholar and Professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, where he directs training programs related to clinical & translational science and biomedical research career development.  As part of the TL1 training grant component of the UF Clinical & Translational Science Award that he leads, he has developed a novel team-based research training program for PhD and dual degree students.  His research interests all focus on education-related projects, including competency-based assessment of science PhD training, team science training, team-based learning, responsible conduct of research training, and career outcomes.  Dr. McCormack is a founding member of the Science of Team Science community, the founding chair of the INSciTS Team Science Education and Training special interest group, past-president of the Team-Based Learning Collaborative, and past-chair of the Graduate Research Education and Training Group of the Association of American Medical Colleges.  He looks forward to working with the board to provide guidance related to team science education and training.

Yi Bu

[email protected]

Zaida Chinchilla Rodriguez, Ph.D.

[email protected]

Deborah DiazGranados, Ph.D.

Treasurer

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Deborah DiazGranados, PhD is an Assistant Professor and Organizational Psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. She serves as Director of Evaluation and Co-Director of Team Science for the Wright Center. She is a Co-Investigator on the $20 million Clinical and Translational Science Award awarded to VCU by NIH. Her research focuses on decision making in uncertain contexts, collaboration for producing innovation, and leadership in complex work environments. Dr. DiazGranados' scholarly achievements to date include over 50 scholarly publications, and more than 150 presentations to national and international audiences. She serves as the Consortia Chair for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Program Chair for the 2020 IN. Dr. DiazGranados'  research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Factors, Academic Medicine, Journal of Interprofessional Collaboration, Small Group Research, Human Resource Management, Journal of Management, Current Directions in Psychological Science, American Psychologist, Clinical and Translational Science and The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. Dr. DiazGranados received her B.S. degrees in Management and Psychology from the University of Houston and her M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.

Tony Lingham, Ph.D.

[email protected]

Tony Lingham began his executive leadership role in his early 20s when he was the Principal Staff Officer (Logistics) and engineer with 14 secondary appointments and leading 250 personnel. Since then, Tony combined his knowledge and expertise from his degrees in music performance, composition, engineering, psychology and organizational behavior and his leadership experience in organizations to work on assessment, development and change at the individual, team and organization levels.

Over the past 18 years, his evidence-based coaching approach has been used to develop teams ranging from boards to functional teams. In healthcare, he worked on assessing and developing inter-professional teamwork for medical and nursing students (supported by two $640,000 grants). Recently, he developed the Design Summit – a unique process to help organizations achieve breakthrough innovations. Apart from being on the editorial board of Engaged Management Review, he also serves on the advisory board of e-Merit Academy created to develop top executives and executive teams globally.

Tony obtained his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University and is currently the Professor of Organizational Behavior and Leadership at Antioch University’s PhD in Leadership and Change Program. In 2018, he was cited in www.forbes.com for his work with executive boards.

W. Christopher (Chris) Lenhardt, M.A., M.Sc.

[email protected]

W. Christopher (Chris) Lenhardt, M.A., M.Sc., is a senior research scientist in the Earth Data Science group at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). RENCI, a data science institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, works to develop and apply advanced data science to solve challenging research and societal problems. At RENCI, he leads or coordinates several projects composed of diverse teams of researchers in areas related to human interactions in the environment. His academic training spans multiple disciplines including political science, international relations, digital curation, and information science. Lenhardt draws on these experiences to inform his research interests that include using sociotechnical concepts to study the development of research information infrastructure. Of particular focus is the interaction between information technology, knowledge management, and team performance. Lenhardt’s interest in these topics also leverages his experience managing NASA-funded earth science data centers, such as serving as director of the Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for Biogeochemical Dynamics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and deputy director of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) at Columbia University. Lenhardt has been an author or co-author on published papers including digital curation; ethical, legal, and societal implications of technology; open science; stakeholder alignment; and information science. Lenhardt has held leadership roles in national and international organizations related to promoting the curation, sharing, and re-use of digital scientific objects including serving as president of ESIP (Federation for Earth Science Information Partners), chair of the Foundation for Earth Science board of directors, and co-chair of the CoopEUS strategic collaboration board. CoopEUS was an EU and NSF joint project to promote aligning scientific cyberinfrastructure. He currently serves as a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Science Advisory Board. He looks forward to working with the Board to help grow and sustain INSciTS, for example representing INSciTS in the Earth and environmental science communities of which he is a part, and working to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the research enterprise.

Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano, EdD, PhD

 Past President

 [email protected]

Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano, Ed.D., Ph.D. graduated from the Graduate School for Education and Human Development in 2012 and was granted a degree from the Executive Leadership Program in the Human and Organizational Learning department. His area of expertise is in team science which is the study of team dynamic in science teams. He focuses on motivation in knowledge-producing teams, complexity leadership, and transdisciplinary theory and learning. His pedagogy for developing translational scientists stresses the growing need for cross-disciplinary skills and agency for change as interdisciplinary brokers. Since the completion of his doctorate he has served the university in a number of capacities including developing the team science curriculum in the School of Medicine and Health Science, developing the PhD in Clinical Translational Health Science and serving as its Director of Doctoral Candidacy. Dr. Lotrecchiano is a recipient of the Morton A. Bender Teaching Excellence Award and is a past chair of the GW University Society of Distinguished Teachers. In addition to his publishing and editorial record, Gaetano recently published a book entitled Communication in Transdisciplinary Teams and is preparing a manual of learning interventions to accompany his psychometric assessment tool, the Motivation Assessment for Team Readiness Integration and Collaboration (MATRICx).

Katie Plaisance

[email protected]

Dr. Kathryn (Katie) Plaisance is an Associate Professor in Knowledge Integration at the University of Waterloo (UW) in Canada. She has an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in philosophy of science from the University of Minnesota. Her scholarly research examines the nature of interdisciplinary expertise; the role of philosophers in enhancing science, science policy, and public understanding of sciences; and best practices for fostering collaboration between humanities and STEM researchers. In addition, she has recently begun a research program on diversity and psychological safety. Over the past decade, Dr. Plaisance has played a pivotal role in helping to develop the Knowledge Integration program at UW, an interdisciplinary undergraduate degree that emphasizes transferable skills like critical and creative thinking, real-world problem solving, and the ability to work effectively in diverse teams. She partnered with several undergraduate students to design a university-wide course called “Making Collaboration Work,” which offers students the opportunity to work in interdisciplinary teams to address a real-world design challenge. Shortly thereafter, she received a grant to examine the effectiveness of the course with respect to improving students’ collaborative skills and their attitudes towards teamwork. Dr. Plaisance also co-founded and directs a Community of Practice on Collaboration and Teamwork at UW through which she offers workshops and materials for instructors on enhancing teamwork in the classroom. She has presented her work at several previous INSciTS conferences, served as a keynote panelist, and provided assistance to conference organizers. Dr. Plaisance hopes to continue contributing to the InSciTS community as a board member. She is passionate about SciTS education at the undergraduate and graduate levels and would like to see greater attention to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), both in SciTS research and in the community itself.

Betsy Rolland, PhD MLIS MPH

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Betsy Rolland, PhD MLIS MPH, is the Director of Team Science + Research Development for the Carbone Cancer Center and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a PhD in Human Centered Design & Engineering and a Master of Library & Information Science, both from the University of Washington, and a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Before coming to the UW-Madison, Dr. Rolland was a post-doctoral Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where she conducted an evaluation of a cancer prevention-focused research network and studied the grants-making process. Her research focuses on coordination and collaboration in team-science projects, including how to design, build, and evaluate infrastructure to support complex, multi-investigator initiatives. She has recently begun exploring ways to use the theories of Implementation Science to design, develop, evaluate, and disseminate team-based interventions in clinical and translational research and is currently the Guest Editor for a themed issue of the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science (JCTS) focused on this topic. Dr. Rolland also serves as the Principal Investigator for the Cancer Center Cessation Initiative (C3I) Coordinating Center, an NCI Moonshot-funded project focused on integrating smoking cessation services into clinical care at 52 NCI-designated cancer centers and as the co-I for Team Science on a new NIDDK-funded Interactions Core for the Collaborating to Advance Interdisciplinary Research in Benign Urology (CAIRIBU) initiative. Her research and applied work feed one another and keep her grounded simultaneously in the research and praxis of team science. She is also a member of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP).

Pips Veazey, Ph.D.

Secretary

[email protected]

Pips Veazey, Ph.D., is the Associate Project Director for the Alaska Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), a statewide program funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Alaska aimed at increasing research capacity. She is also the lead and creator of Vis Space, a high-resolution visual environment designed to promote conversations about complex problems, develop creative solutions and enhance team development. Her research interests include the development and implementation of interdisciplinary research teams, the interaction between teams and technology, and team science leadership. Building on academic foundations in psychology (BA, Bates College) and oceanography (MS, University of Alaska, Fairbanks), she completed an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in team science leadership at UAF, examining the competencies required to be an effective leader of large interdisciplinary team science projects. She carries a passion for synthesizing and implementing team science research to create more effective science teams and works with numerous interdisciplinary teams to help propel innovative and transformative research.

Chris W. Wiese, Ph.D.

[email protected]

Chris Wiese, Ph.D., is the Area Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also serves as the Team Science lead for Georgia’s Clinical and Translational Science Alliance, which puts on a Team Science Skills Series to train all researchers on how to work in teams. This team has also developed a Team Science Skills Toolkit, freely available for anyone interested. As director of The Foundation Lab, he conducts multidisciplinary research that focuses on facilitating positive team dynamics and improving worker well-being. The lab engages in research with cognitive psychologists (e.g., spatial navigation), molecular biologists (e.g., Alzheimer’s Disease), biomedical engineers (e.g., physiological indicators of stress), and computer scientists (e.g., augmented/virtual reality). He consults with several organizations to improve their team dynamics and has been a part of several federally funded research projects to improve teamwork. He is looking forward to working with the INSciTS Board and its members in conducting and promoting great team science. 

Former Board Members and Officers

• Maritza Salazar Campo, PhD, University of California, Irvine, Founding President and Board member (2018-2019), Immediate Past President (2019-2020)
• Holly J. Falk-Krzesinski, PhD, Elsevier and Northwestern University, Secretary and Board member (2018-2019)
• Kevin Wooten, PhD, University of Texas Medical Branch, Treasurer (2018-2019) and Board Member (2018-2020)
• Kara Hall, PhD, National Cancer Institute, Board Member (2018-2019)
• Julie Thompson Klein, Wayne State University, Board Member (2018-2020)
• Gaetano Lottrechiano, George Washington University, Board Member (2018-2021), President (2019-2020)
• Andi Hess, Arizona State University, Board Member (2018-2021), President (2020-2021)
• Shalini Misra, Virginia Tech, Board Member (2018-2021)
• Darshana Shaw, Marshall University