Our People
Meet the Team
Lisa Williams, MSSA
As associate dean, Williams provides a strategic vision for improving health and well-being outcomes, building upon current strengths and collaborating on opportunities for growth with evidence-based approaches.
Williams has an extensive record of promoting well-being and addressing the wellness needs of her colleagues. With a combined 15 years at the University of Kentucky, she has held multiple leadership positions and has been involved with numerous presentations and research projects in related areas.
Prior to her role as associate dean, she served as an adjunct assistant professor and consultant at the UK College of Health Sciences, where she also served as an instructor, advisor, and coach for the physician assistant program. Before this, she taught graduate-level courses and served as a consultant for six years at the UK College of Social Work.
Since 2017, Williams has run a successful coaching and consulting business, working closely with organizations to assess and improve employee engagement and organizational culture while providing coaching in emotional intelligence and leadership. Her clients have included Bluegrass Care Navigators, the University of Kentucky Women’s Forum, Dental Care Plus, LG&E and Kentucky Utilities, local public and private school systems, and numerous other organizations. She is co-founder and co-facilitator of the High Impact Leadership Project, a program designed to advance emotional intelligence and future competencies. Over the past four years, there have been more than 70 participants throughout Kentucky and Ohio.
In 2015, Williams provided oversight of the YMCA of Central Kentucky’s Beaumont and Jessamine County branches as executive director while creating and evaluating programs to promote physical, mental, and social health. Beforehand, she developed sustainability and growth strategies for the UK Institute for Workplace Innovation as acting co-director and assistant director of management and operations.
Williams' expertise in well-being and professional development is vital as the College of Medicine works toward promoting holistic health for all faculty, staff, and learners. Her appointment demonstrates the college’s commitment to this priority and ensures it maintains accountability and progress.
Rachel Wilson, PhD
Rachel is the director of organizational well-being within the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She previously spent five years on UK HealthCare’s Enterprise Learning team. She serves as an organizational psychologist providing leadership and oversight for programs and initiatives across the College of Medicine and within UK HealthCare that foster a culture of well-being. Her focus is on developing, assessing, and overseeing culture change initiatives that support organizational well-being, and developing and implementing a coaching framework that supports the emotional intelligence growth of leaders who are responsible for maintaining an organizational culture of well-being in which everyone thrives.
Rachel has worked in the field of organizational psychology for 15 years. She has focused her skill set on a variety of human capital areas, including well-being, organizational development, employee engagement, leadership development, recruitment/on-boarding, employee selection and assessment, competency modeling, workforce planning, strategic planning, and process improvement. Rachel has been at the University of Kentucky since 2017.
Prior to moving to Lexington, Rachel spent time as a strategic human capital consultant for various federal, state, and local government clients. She additionally worked as an HR business partner at a community hospital in Oregon. Rachel is a certified professional coach and has a master's and PhD in industrial/organizational psychology from Portland State University. Her focus in graduate school was occupational health psychology and her past research focused on work-family conflict, health, and safety of workers. She is passionate about improving the workplace experience for employees; topics of interest include stress management, burnout, and work-life integration. Rachel is originally from the small coastal town of Bandon, Ore., and now lives in Lexington with her beloved Australian Shepard, Finley, her daughter, Wren, and identical twin boys, Mac and Sam.
LeAnn Barber, MPA
Molly Taylor, PhD, ATC
Office for Organizational Well-Being
Positions Held:
- Postdoctoral Scholar
Molly Taylor, PhD, ATC
Molly Taylor, Phd, ATC recently successfully defended her dissertation, entitled: "An Uncultivated Skillset: Emotional Intelligence in Healthcare Profession Students."
In addition to continuing to explore strategies to enhance emotional intelligence and reduce burnout in our healthcare student and young professional populations, Molly looks forward to branching out beyond individual wellness and learning macro-level strategies from the Organizational Well-Being team. As a team we are carving an impressive path for other colleges of medicine and healthcare systems to follow concerning best practices to enhance organizational health, empower faculty and residents within the greater healthcare system, and inspire a culture of bottom-up engagement, communication and respect. Dr. Taylor is excited to bring her research experience to the team and effectively capture the incredible initiatives being implemented by our office in order to quantify and disseminate the positive changes taking place in the UK College of Medicine and UK HealthCare.
Renee Gallagher, MEd
Renee is the administrative operations coordinator for the Office for Organizational Well-Being. She contributes to the team by providing necessary support to align operational needs with university structures and processes. She manages and cultivates the Arts for Well-Being in Academic Medicine Program that includes offerings such as: Colors and Connection, Introduction to Social Dance and Courtyard Concerts.
Prior to working at UK, Renee worked as a database project manager, onboarding software clients across the United States. In this role she developed key reporting tools used to clean and manage effective data transfers across SAAS association management systems. In her role as a consultant, Renee utilized her MEd in Instructional Design to create and deliver training programs curated to the specific needs of her association management customers, learning and assessment customers, and other clients seeking her unique learning design skill set.
Currently, Renee is pursing her Doctorate in Instruction and Administration, in the UK College of Education. She has completed the Launch Blue UAccel program and continues developing her social innovation, Sway2Go, in partnership with the UK Office of Technology and Commercialization. She is a U.S. National Professional Ballroom Dance Champion (retired), and former small business owner who owned and operated dance schools in San Jose, California and Richmond, Kentucky. She is thrilled to be working alongside her team here at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.
Teambuilding Time
May 2024: Listening to Tait Shanafelt, MD. Inaugural Well-Being Lectureship in Karpf Auditorium, UKHC
Pictured: Renee, Lisa, Rachel, Molly, LeAnn
February 2024: Our office participates in team-building activities to create community and connection within our own unit
Pictured: Rachel, Lisa, Renee, LeAnn