Rama Mwenesi

Rama Musalia Mwenesi, MSE, PhD
22

Health Infrastructures and Learning Systems (HILS) PhD Alumnus

Rama Musalia Mwenesi, MSE, earned his PhD in 2022 in Health Infrastructures and Learning Systems. 

His dissertation topic was Applying Learning Health Systems and Implementation Science Strategies to Understand and Improve Surgical Count Error Reporting Among Perioperative Nurses

Since graduating in 2016 with his Masters in Industrial & Operations Engineering, Rama has served as the PeriOperative Services Manager for Quality Assurance & Innovation at Michigan Medicine where he is responsible for designing, building and implementing a quality improvement infrastructure to support the institution's Operating Rooms and Post Anesthesia Care Units (ORs/PACUs). Working at the intersection of continuous improvement strategy engineering, healthcare and nonprofits, Rama is a member of several development initiatives across the United States and in his home country of Kenya. 

As a student, Rama founded the student-organization and ICT startup E-MAGINE which provides access to health and education resources to marginalized communities around the world and became the only student in U-M history to be recognized as a 2-time Student of the Year Award recipient. Outside of work and studies, Rama loves to spend his time relaxing, dessert tasting, and coaching the U-M Men’s & Women’s Boxing Team which is currently ranked as the No. 1 U.S.I.B.A College Boxing program in the country with 7 National Championship Team Titles.

What attracted you to the program?

We attracted each other. Following the completion of my Administrative Fellowship at Michigan Medicine, I knew without a doubt that I would be back in college pursuing a multidisciplinary degree program that was going to be like no other. A program that could seamlessly integrate curricula from systems and engineering management, design science and informatics, public health policy and medicine, and be rooted in innovation. A program that had unparalleled faculty commitment.  A program that considered True Diversity to be its primary strength.

I set out to build my dream program over the next 3 years until the Fall of 2016 when I finally discovered that Department of Learning Health Sciences took it upon themselves to build it for me.