KNN Program Office Staff Biography

Kimara Ellefson is a visionary leader, culture strategist and consultant, and frequent keynote speaker on leadership, organizational development, and systems change. As the national director of strategy and partnerships for the Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine (KNN), Kimara partners with medical schools and healthcare organizations across the country to identify opportunities to shape organizational cultures of human flourishing and inspire action at multiple institutional levels. She also provides leadership for the KNN program office, developing strategic plans that have enabled the KNN to grow from a network of seven founding medical schools to a vibrant movement of healthcare organizations engaged in various ways.

Her research interests include leadership development for flourishing grounded in Feminist Relational Theory (FRT), praxis and community. She brings a scholar–practitioner lens to investigating the role of leaders’ mental models in driving norms, organizing behaviors and culture across healthcare professions. Her work aims to explore whether a new paradigm for leadership and followership could support Ecosystem-Wide Flourishing (EWF) in medicine.

Kimara’s work is informed by more than 20 years of experience leading organizational and faculty development in academic medicine. In 2021, she was recognized with the Distinguished Service Award, the Medical College of Wisconsin's (MCW) highest honor. Additionally, Kimara has served in national leadership roles with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Faculty Affairs.

Along with service to professional organizations, Kimara has made several contributions to the literature within the field of academic medicine. She co-authored a chapter in Closing the Gender Pay Gap in Medicine (Springer, 2021) and an article on flourishing as a lens for physician formation in Medical Teacher (2024). Additionally, she served as primary author of a chapter on faculty leadership in medicine for flourishing in Leadership for Flourishing (forthcoming).

Kimara holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and a Master of Business Administration. She is currently completing her EdD in Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University with a dissertation on Flourishing Leadership Through the Lens of Feminist Relational Theory Among Faculty Leaders in Academic Medicine. Ultimately, she endeavors to strengthen organizational cultures and relationships to catalyze systems change that enables flourishing for all.