L Michelle Bennett

Senior Consultant

Lead Team Science Consultant

Dr. L. Michelle Bennett is a senior consultant with Roger Schwarz and Associates having departed her position as Director of the Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute in 2021. She trained as a molecular oncologist with a focus on genetic susceptibility to cancer, earning a Ph.D. in oncology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research studies were focused on the intersection of cancer and the environment.

Dr Bennett’s passions pulled her away from the laboratory bench to focus on science administration and become a certified executive coach. This combination provided her with opportunities to grow into leadership roles that focused on strategic scientific planning, creating conditions for successful interdisciplinary collaboration, workforce diversity and health disparities, as well as organizational change management and development in research institutions.

Her interest in psychology was renewed in the context of team science and collaboration when she saw an opportunity to merge the need for scientists to address increasingly complex scientific problems with their need to operate as well-functioning teams. This is especially true for experts who come together from different disciplines, sectors of science, and lived experiences and need to manage major differences in perspectives.

She has extensive practical experience in promoting collaboration and team-based approaches by bringing together research scientists with diverse backgrounds and expertise, across many dimensions of difference. She co-authored Collaboration and Team Science: A Field Guide that serves as a primer for investigators who are building or participating on research teams.

Her introduction to Mutual Learning provided the link between team science and science team effectiveness. A shared team mindset underpins the science that the team sets out to do and is also essential for an effective team. Mutual Learning, if adopted at the start of a scientific project, sits at the base of everything the individual, team or organization does. Once in place, anything is possible. Effective teams can generate outstanding results, have strong and healthy relationships, with team members who have a strong sense of well-being.

See the full team