Professor Wins 2015 SPH Educational Innovation Award at Education Day.

Gouri Gupte, an assistant professor of health policy and management, won the SPH Educational Innovation Award at the 2015 John McCahan Medical Campus Education day.

The award recognizes creative contributions to the development of tools for the innovative presentation of coursework, new curriculum design, and the creation of an improved teaching and learning environment.

Gupte is among a growing group of SPH professors who have embraced practice-based courses that immerse students into project-focused teams that deliver workable solutions for potential clients.

The Educational Innovation Award is designed to reward faculty who are prepared to challenge the traditional ways of doing things, to try out new approaches, and to seek improvements in the way teaching is delivered and learning is achieved. Its aim is to enhance the status of teaching, encourage innovation, and disseminate good practice.

Last year’s Educational Innovation Award winner, Jacey Greece, a clinical assistant professor of community health sciences, won an 2015 award for best faculty abstract for research into practice-based teaching that she is conducting with Gupte as well as James Wolff, associate professor of global health, and Malcolm Bryant, clinical associate professor of global health.

Greece’s abstract was titled “A Cross-Discipline Evaluation of Practice-Based Teaching: Designing and Conducting an Evaluation of Innovative Teaching Methodology across MPH Disciplines.”

Gupte, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, teaches Strategy Management in Health Care, Operations Management, and Lean Management at SPH. Her research interests include a focus on quality improvement processes (Six sigma, Lean and Kaizen) in hospitals, diffusion of innovations, health information technology, strategy management, and medical tourism.

Gupte began her career as a physician in India, then completed her MHA in Melbourne, Australia, where she began working with the public health system. She has also worked in academic settings in India, assisting in the development of MHA programs. Her PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham focused on “Information Technology in Pediatric Hospitals and Quality of Care.”