Katherine Meese, Ph.D., has been named director of the UAB Center for Healthcare Management and Leadership, charged with providing mindful and strategic vision to the center’s programs by using a translational approach to bridge the gap between academia and the evolving healthcare landscape.
“The industry is constantly changing,” said Meese. “Implementing creative strategies to better connect academia and practice is critical to advancing our mission of developing healthcare leaders.”
Since its inception 55 years ago, the center has overseen programs to prepare current and future healthcare managers and executives in their pursuit of knowledge, innovation, and leadership of the healthcare system to meet the current demands of our world.
“Dr. Meese is an enthusiastic and talented member of our team,” said Christy Harris Lemak, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Health Services Administration. “Her background work nationally and globally in a corporate environment gives her a great set of skills for planning and delivering exciting and innovative programs through the center. We all benefit from her vision and her ability to execute on big ideas.”
With an emphasis on scholarship, field experience, and leadership education, Meese is deeply committed to the work the industry represents and plans to focus on new mechanisms to engage future leaders in healthcare.
“My goal for the center is to rethink how we connect to industry and to provide new pathways for collaboration between students, academics and practitioners to address real-world problems” said Meese.
Patrick Grusenmeyer, Sc.D., FACHE, previous director for the Center of Healthcare Management and Leadership, has laid a great foundation and an abundance of resources to build upon, said Meese.
Grusenmeyer, who served as vice president and CEO within Christiana Care Health System for nearly 20 years, is an associate professor in the Department of Health Services Administration, specializing in healthcare policy, strategy, and finance.
Meese enters her new role as director with several years of diverse industry experience under her belt, working in ten countries across four continents, including managing a large academic medical center. Her research interests include organizational behavior, leadership, well-being, and delivery models that enhance organizational learning.
As an assistant professor in the School of Health Profession’s Department of Health Services Administration, Meese also serves as the program director for the Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Leadership.
Currently in its first year, the online self-guided program was designed with busy working professionals and clinical trainees in mind. Tied to Meese’s vision for the center, the program’s curriculum offers coursework in finance, operations, health system and policy, and leadership.
Meese shares that the program provides students with practical tools to shape their skillset as leaders and adapt to the ever-changing healthcare environment.
Meese earned her undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University and her master’s of public health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. In 2019, she completed her Ph.D. in Administration-Health Services with a specialization in strategic management from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she later joined as faculty in 2020. Meese has co-authored two textbooks for organizational behavior in healthcare used in healthcare management programs across the country.
Meese officially assumed her new role on Oct. 1, 2021.
For more information about the UAB Center for Healthcare Management and Leadership, and the programs it offers, visit www.uab.edu/chml.
