RISE Team

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Dr. Rajesh Mangrulkar’s work lies in organizational leadership and innovative technologies, and their interface with transforming medical education at scale. At the University of Michigan, he has built his educational leadership experience in the internal medicine residency training program as associate director, as director of ENCORE (an education innovations unit within the Dean’s Office), and then as assistant dean for education innovation until accepting his current role in 2011. Currently, as associate dean, he leads the curriculum, student affairs, evaluation and assessment, educational research, learning community, and admissions units for medical student education. His central area of focus is leading the medical school-wide initiative to transform the curriculum into a program that will graduate physician leaders who help lead change in patient care, healthcare delivery and science.

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Dr. Paula Ross is the Administrative Director, Michigan Medicine Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Research (RISE). She oversees the RISE unit operations and innovation project development. Prior to this role, Dr. Ross served as Director, Advancing Scholarship at the University of Michigan Medical School where she led efforts to develop and disseminate the school’s education research and promote an infrastructure to produce high-quality scholarship. She earned a Ph.D. in medical sociology with a specialty in qualitative research methods. She has extensive experience with qualitative research design using various methodologies and philosophical approaches. For over 15 years, she has qualitatively investigated topics in diversity in medicine, medical student professionalism, health care disparities, and veteran-centered care in both undergraduate and graduate medical education.

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Dr. Nikki Bibler Zaidi is the Evaluation and Assessment Director, Michigan Medicine Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Research (RISE). She oversees the RISE unit evaluation and assessment. Prior to this role, Dr. Zaidi served as Associate Director, Advancing Scholarship at the University of Michigan Medical School where she worked with Dr. Ross to advance and disseminate the school’s education research and promote an infrastructure to produce high-quality scholarship. She earned a Ph.D. in quantitative research methods with a focus in evaluation and assessment. She has experience with quantitative research design and best practices for evaluation and assessment.

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Jun Yang is a statistician in the Office of Medical Student and Education. She has a MA in mathematics with a concentration in computer science. She has been working as a member of curriculum evaluation and assessment team for 11 years. She has extensive knowledge in complex data management and advanced statistical analysis. During her time at OMSE, she provided statistical consultation, analysis and reporting within and out of OMSE, and she also conducted numerous analyses, prepared reports and managed data for public release, and co-authored manuscripts.

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Laurie Koivupalo is the Administrative Assistant for the Research Innovation Scholarship Education (RISE) and the Medical School’s Program in Health, Religion, and Spirituality Leadership. She has worked at the University for 20 years in the Department of Pharmacology and the Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) where she provided administrative support to faculty, staff and graduate students.