David C. Colby is the vice president of Research and Evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Previously, he was the deputy director of Research and Evaluation, the deputy director of the Health Care Group, interim team leader for the Quality Team, and team leader for the Coverage Team at the Foundation.

Colby came to the Foundation in January 1998 after nine years of service with the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Physician Payment Review Commission, where he was deputy director. Previously, he was with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where he was associate professor in the Policy Science Graduate Program and coordinator of the Masters of Policy Science Program. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in Health Care Finance, serving in the Congressional Budget Office. Prior to his policy work, he was dean of freshman and assistant dean at Williams College and held faculty positions at Williams College and State University College at Buffalo.

Lori Melichar, Ph.D., M.A., a labor economist and senior program officer in the Foundation’s Research and Evaluation Unit embraces the challenge of “understanding what motivates health care professionals to do high quality work.”

As part of the Foundation’s focus on ensuring that the nation has a diverse, well-trained leadership and workforce in health and health care, Melichar manages three programs to develop human capital: Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative, RWJF Investigators in Health Policy, and RWJF Health Policy Scholars. She also is engaged in the Foundation’s efforts to advance the science of quality improvement (QI) research and evaluation, and to produce information that is useful to employers and providers considering investing in quality improvement training.

Melichar has worked for six years to engage researchers from a range of disciplines and backgrounds to increase what is known and understood about how to improve the quality of care provided by nurses in hospitals and other settings. Currently, Melichar is guiding the development and synthesis of research that can educate policy-makers, health care leaders, public health departments and the public about the opportunities for nursing to play a key role in increasing the value of health care delivered in the United States.

Melichar joined the Foundation in 2002, after serving with the National Institutes of Child Health and Development. Previously, she was associated with the “Demography of Inequality” Initiative at the University of Maryland Center on Population, Gender and Inequality. She also has worked at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals as a consultant and economic policy analyst, as well as at the Project Hope Center for Health Affairs.