Paula Ross PhD

Dr. Paula Thompson is the Program Director, at Michigan Medicine Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Research (RISE). She oversees the RISE unit operations and innovation project development. Prior to this role, Dr. Ross served as Director, Advancing Scholarships at the University of Michigan Medical School where she led efforts to develop and disseminate the school’s education research and promote an infrastructure to produce high-quality scholarships.

Paula Ross completed her doctorate degree in medical sociology at Wayne State University specializing in medical sociology and qualitative methods. She received her B.S. in African American Studies and Political Science and M.A. in Sociology and African American Studies from Eastern Michigan University. She is a former King-Chavez-Parks fellow and the 2012 recipient of the Chow-Green Women of Color Scholarship from the Sociologists for Women in Society and a 2012-2013 student award from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. She has extensive experience with a qualitative research design using various methodologies and philosophical approaches. For over 15 years, she has qualitatively investigated topics in diversity in medicine, medical student professionalism, health care disparities, and veteran-centered care in both undergraduate and graduate medical education.

Her dissertation, “Risking Reproduction: Reproductive Health among Women with Sickle Cell Disease,” qualitatively examines the ways in which 28 women with sickle cell disease experience reproductive health and health care and their responses to discouraging messages regarding their reproductive lives.