I didn’t set out to become an implementation scientist. My path began with anthropology—studying how people make meaning, navigate institutions, and adapt to change. Along the way, I became fascinated with healthcare: the everyday encounters between patients and providers, the technologies that shape their interactions, and the systems that try to deliver evidence-based care under real-world pressures.

That curiosity has guided my work ever since. At the VA and the University of Iowa, I’ve used ethnography and qualitative methods to understand how new practices and technologies—from sepsis dashboards to artificial intelligence tools for transcription and charting—become part of clinical care. I’ve studied how clinicians use big data in critical care, how rural Veterans experience telehealth, and how safety and stewardship programs unfold in complex health systems.

What keeps me engaged is the human side of innovation: What helps clinicians trust and use a new tool? How do patients experience changes in care delivery? What makes an intervention sustainable in a busy clinic or ICU? These are the questions I bring to interdisciplinary teams, whether working on NIH- and VA-funded projects in nephrology and patient safety, or partnering on PCORI-funded trials in primary care.

For me, implementation science is about bridging worlds—research and practice, clinicians and patients, technology and humanity. I believe that by listening closely, observing carefully, and working collaboratively, we can ensure that innovations in healthcare don’t just exist on paper but truly make a difference in people’s lives.