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Dee Nicholas, Ph.D. is a 2025 graduate of the PhD Program in Leadership and Change at Antioch University.

Dee Nicholas at her Dissertation Defense.

From L-R: Dr. Elizabeth Sanders, Committee Member, Dr. Aqeel Tirmizi, Committee Member, Dr. Beth Mabry, Committee Chair

Dissertation Committee

  • Beth Mabry, PhD, Committee Chair
  • Aqeel Tirmizi, PhD, Committee Member
  • Elizabeth Sanders, PhD, Committee Member

Keywords

health, evidence-based design; design thinking, innovation, ambidextrous leadership, design leadership, socially responsive design

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

As healthcare costs are skyrocketing, of the 6,093 hospitals in America, 53% will lose money in the current year (Coleman-Lochner, 2022). Design health innovation centers (DHICs) are formed in Europe and the United States to create efficiencies in healthcare related to budget challenges. DHICs exist in unique contexts both in America and Europe that are not yet well understood. These efforts are difficult to lead due to the lack of understanding of their worth and how their process is valuable to healthcare settings (Bhattacharyya et al., 2022). The specific problem examined here is that little is known about how DHIC leaders and teams create and sustain these centers, including how design and health team leaders work together and what resources encourage the success of DHICs (Romm & Vink, 2019). The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine how ambidextrous leadership and growth play out in team and leader behaviors and experiences at one DHIC in Europe. The goal of this work is to contribute to an improved understanding for DHIC creation in the United States health system. Of particular interest to this study are leader behaviors that seem to directly link to areas in DHICs of innovation. These behaviors may be the key to understanding how leaders are innovating and staying successful across multiple silos and communities. While traditional metrics of success often focus on implementation, research into DHICs should examine the interrelationship between the creative and the practical, including how leaders create the right environments for teams to form and operate toward successful metrics and social impact (Dyrda, 2018; Hostetter et al., 2015). This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

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Dee Nicholas

ORCID: #0000-0001-9194-0556

D.S. Nicholas (Dee) established the Drexel Design Research for Health (DRDR4Health) lab, an Umbrella Lab that houses interdisciplinary research and scholarship, in 2013. She is a tenured Associate Professor and the Founding Director of the MS Design Program and longtime coordinator of the Sustainability in the Built Environment Minor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Dee holds a BARCH from Carnegie Mellon, an MFA from The University of the Arts, and a Social Science Ph.D. from Antioch University. Her work as a researcher, teacher, and colleague is primarily concerned with health-supportive and climate preparedness possibilities within our environments through evidence-based design, creative co-design, and community engaged practice. For 15+ years, she has deeply collaborated across health, science, technology, engineering, and math disciplinary bounds, and often is the design and community voice on these interdisciplinary teams.

Her current work focuses on aging in place including an evidence based measure co-created with community, The Mantua Creative Standard for Aging in Place (MCSAP). A tool used to retrofit spaces to support aging-in-place. She believes that connecting people to care, mitigating climate impacts and long term use of existing buildings are intrinsically linked. Her work springs from her formative experiences as a first gen. third culture kid and MENA woman. She has developed a process entitled “Insightful Design Thinking” (Nicholas, 2023) built through 20+ years of evidence based community social impact work. Her lab takes a culture of care-centered socially responsive approach to the research they undertake, and recently she exhibited and presented research works in Switzerland, Australia, Europe, the Midwest, and the East Coast.

Dee’s work has been both federally and foundation funded and is presented in National, and International, Journals including The Design Journal, Enquiry: The ARCC Journal for Architectural Research, IJDL, The Plan Journal, and ii Journal: international journal of interior architecture + spatial design. With 26 years of practice and Higher Ed. experience, including as a small business owner, Dee also co-holds two patents on a circular design product, and collaborates with researchers from Biology, Public Health, Epidemiology, Education, Chemistry, Computing, and Psychology on her work which also draws students from across the university and at all levels. Dee has collaborated with Second Story Collective, Penn Medicine, The Autism Institute, The Writers Room, Domestic Violence Centers of Chester County, The Alliance of Non-Profit Care Providers, Fabric Health, IMPACT Services, FAIMER, Penn Medicine, St Christophers, Second Story Collective, RHD, Agewell Collaboratory, and People’s Emergency Center.

Lab video about current work:

https://video214.com/play/H0XRg32lpZ7GhkMFTI1LYA/s/dark

Website:

Drexel Design Research for Health Lab: https://designcare4health.com/

Drexel Lab Page: https://research.westphal.drexel.edu/ddr4health/

Social:

INSTA: @dsre_drexel

LINKED IN:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/dlcs4health

https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-s-diana-nicholas-ncidq-aia-leed-ga-550a783/

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