About
Dr. Marissa Shuffler has over a decade of experience conducting basic and applied research in the areas of team development, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. Dr. Shuffler is an Associate Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Clemson University and Director of Clemson’s DIGITAL (Deriving Innovative & riGorous scIence for Teaming And Leading) Research Lab. Her research focuses on the study of scientifically derived, innovative interventions needed to develop, sustain, and maximize inter- and intra-team functioning and well-being. Her work also addresses the challenges of leading and leadership development in high risk and complex environments including healthcare, construction, the military, and spaceflight. Dr. Shuffler has served as scientific lead on numerous large-scale research projects, including a longitudinal investigation evaluating the multilevel effects of relationship-oriented leadership behaviors and team climate on care coordination, patient experience, and clinician wellbeing. Furthermore, she is co-lead of a NASA funded effort to conduct a series of field studies to uncover the key inter- and intra-team processes and relationship dynamics impacting long duration spaceflight, and is a co-PI for a multi-university cooperative agreement investigating team composition and teaming dynamics for the U.S. Army Research Institute.
To date, Dr. Shuffler has secured over $13 million in grant funding as either a Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator from federal and private entities, and served as a Collaborator on Clemson’s interdisciplinary team that secured a five-year National Science Foundation Research Traineeship. In 2017, she was awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER grant for her research exploring team development interventions and the use of latent profile analysis as a mechanism for better designing interventions for interdisciplinary team effectiveness. Dr. Shuffler’s published work to date includes an edited book, over 65 scholarly publications, and over 200 presentations. She is an Associate Editor for Organizational Psychology Review and serves on the editorial boards of Group & Organization Management, Small Group Research, Military Psychology, and the Journal of Business & Psychology.
For more information, see her College Profile.
How their research is transforming health care
In the context of healthcare, Dr. Shuffler conducts applied organizational science research, working with multiple Prisma Health collaborators to implement mixed-methods studies that examine the critical roles of organizational science, leadership, and teaming in maximizing healthcare system effectiveness. These efforts have largely focused on assessing the multilevel effects of relationship-oriented leadership and team climate on quadruple aim outcomes including surgical team efficiency, cancer care coordination, patient experience, and provider wellbeing. Working with Dr. Donald Wiper of Prisma Health, Dr. Dorothy Carter of the University of Georgia, and a team of graduate and undergraduate students, Dr. Shuffler is presently investigating the challenges of coordinating complex patient care across multiple teams of providers who must work across multiple departments, specialties, and locations. Integrating research in interprofessional team rounding, health systems science, multiteam system dynamics, and organizational science, the research team aims to develop and evaluate interventions that can help facilitate improved coordination of care and patient safety. To date, Dr. Shuffler’s partnerships with Prisma Health clinical collaborators have resulted in over 25 published or in progress manuscripts, over 50 conference presentations, five doctoral dissertations, and six graduate theses in progress or recently completed.
Notably, as part of her recent appointment as a CUSHR Embedded Faculty Fellow during Spring/Summer 2020, Dr. Shuffler is studying potential interventions for addressing wellbeing and burnout at the individual, team, and department levels in Emergency Medicine, working with Dr. Emily Hirsh, Dr. William Jackson, Dr. Ronald Pirrallo, Dr. Tom Britt, and other members of the Department of Emergency Medicine. This project initially started as a smaller pilot effort with Dr. Hirsh that quickly expanded in response to the need for tracking clinician well-being and burnout at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This effort has resulted in the design and implementation of an innovative “rapid cycle” toolkit for identifying and addressing burnout and wellness needs of Emergency Medicine physicians, advanced practice providers, residents, and registered nurses at Prisma Health. The toolkit includes a survey is used to evaluate the well-being of clinicians, including burnout assessments as well as questions to capture resource needs and concerns. Results are rapidly summarized by our research team and shared with Emergency Medicine leadership in order to inform decision making and actions necessary to address concerns, provide resources, and enhance physician well-being. Importantly, the resulting rapid-cycle well-being survey has provided significant insight into EM clinicians’ experiences and needs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to date.
News and media related to their research
- College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences names inaugural research innovation faculty fellows - Clemson News
- Clemson researchers, Prisma Health clinicans work to reduce burnout, enhance the practice of medicine - Clemson News
- Psychology professor named newest Clemson School of Health Research Faculty Fellow - Clemson News
Health Research Expertise Keywords
Faculty Scholar, Psychology, Teamwork, Leadership, Organizational Effectiveness, Team Training, Burnout, Well-being, Organizational Development, Multiteam Systems, Intervention Design & Evaluation, Translational Science
