Kathleen Sutcliffe

Kathleen Sutcliffe is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Emerita of Business and Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, holding appointments in the Carey Business School within the Business & Economics faculty, the School of Medicine's Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, the School of Nursing, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. She received her PhD in Organization Theory and Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991, a Master of Nursing in Community Health Systems from the University of Washington in 1981, a BS in Nursing Science from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1978, and an AB in Education from the University of Michigan in 1971. Before joining Johns Hopkins as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in 2014, Sutcliffe was a faculty member at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business for two decades, where she progressed from Assistant Professor to Professor of Management and Organizations, held the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professorship of Business Administration, and served as Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research from 2006 to 2010.

Her research investigates how organizations and members achieve reliable and resilient performance in uncertain, dynamic, high-hazard environments, such as healthcare, wildland firefighting, aircraft carriers, oil and gas exploration, and chemical processing. Sutcliffe's seminal work on high reliability organizing and collective mindfulness has profoundly influenced the fields of management and patient safety. She has co-authored seven books, including "Still Not Safe: Patient Safety and the Middle Managing of American Medicine" (2020, with Robert L. Wears), "Managing the Unexpected: Sustainable Performance in a Complex World" (2015, third edition, with Karl E. Weick), and earlier editions in 2007 and 2001. Her numerous publications appear in top management and healthcare journals. Among her honors are election to the Fellowship of the Academy of Management (2018), recognition in the AACSB Influential Leaders Class of 2024 for healthcare or wellness, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency Fellowship (2016), and the Academy of Management's MOC Division Distinguished Scholar Award (2015). Sutcliffe serves on editorial boards of several journals, is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Transportation Research Board Committee on Emerging Trends in Aviation Safety, and has consulted for executive teams at Goldman Sachs, Georgia Pacific, Marathon Oil, and ThyssenKrupp.

Professional Email: ksutcliffe@jhu.edu