Leadership, Legacy, & Impact: Celebrating President Paula Milone-Nuzzo and Her “Ripple Effect”

Lisa McEvoy

Date

December 11, 2025

Topics

Area of Expertise

Interprofessional Education

Leadership & Org Change

Nursing Education

Symposium held for retiring president; panel discussion, guest speaker, tears and laughter make up joyous celebration

The early leaders of the MGH Institute envisioned an educational experience that would enable healthcare professionals to transform care. Over the past eight years, President Paula Milone-Nuzzo has guided the Institute toward that goal while navigating unprecedented challenges. As she prepares to retire, the community came together last Thursday to explore the elements that are vital to advancing healthcare professions and to recognize all she has done to lead the Institute beyond what the early leaders could have ever imagined.

CBS Boston Sports Director Steve Burton moderated the celebration, sharing the current state of financial stability, enrollment gains, and new programs that have been developed under Dr. Milone-Nuzzo’s leadership. He also shared a personal story to highlight the impact she has had.

“Before my dad died, he got our family together and asked a very simple question,” explained Burton. “What ripple effect will you have when you leave this earth? Paula has left a tremendous ripple effect.”
Her ripple effect started more than 50-years ago when she became a nurse and continues to this day.

“It’s impossible not to reflect on how deeply she has shaped the heart and the very soul of the Institute of Health Professions,” Board of Trustees Chair Jeannette Ives Ericson, RN, DNP ’11 told the full room in 1 CW, where the celebration of Milone-Nuzzo’s career was held. “From her earliest days as a community health nurse to her visionary presidency, Paula has always been driven by one purpose, and that’s to lift people up. She has spent her career removing barriers, opening doors, and believing in people, even before they believed in themselves.”

The largest ripple is perhaps the students who have graduated and gone on to bring the lessons they learned at the Institute to their patients. From the beginning, she made time to connect with students, a point raised numerous times during the panel discussion that was focused on Milone-Nuzzo’s impact.

“The one nuance that Paula introduced is that the student must be always at the center of what we do here,” said Chief Operations Officer Denis Stratford, who recounted that when Milone-Nuzzo started on August 15, 2017, she took two hours to walk the campus with him to see what students experienced during the day. “With every student we encountered, Paula stopped and introduced herself and asked, ‘What’s your name? What program are you in? Where are you in that program? What do you want to do when you graduate?’ So what we had planned to do for two hours eventually took eight hours over her first week and a half. Then set the tone for the next eight years.”
That personal interest in students was evident to the students.

“I remember the first time that I was invited to an event that had the word president in the title,” said panelist Leah Rothchild, a 2024 DEN graduate. “I thought that Paula would maybe make a brief appearance, shake a few important hands, and then leave the way politicians typically do, but that was never my experience. She was present for the entire event. She would mingle with everybody that was there, and she always carved out time for students.”
That was not the only way that students experienced Paula’s influence.

“I just loved every moment of my time here,” continued Rothchild. “I had amazing clinical rotations in the Boston area. There were amazing opportunities where I could participate in optional, interdisciplinary collaboration that really enhanced my knowledge and skills. My faculty were incredible, and they utilized new and evidence-based teaching modalities that really focused on critical thinking rather than just simple memorization. All of this happened under Paula's leadership.”
The incredible faculty that Rothchild studied under were also the recipients of Paula’s leadership and attention.

“I am a strong believer in the role of faculty contributing to the science of health care,” said Milone-Nuzzo in her remarks. “From that science comes innovation and improved health care and health care education. Over the years, we have created a culture that seeks new ways of teaching, new approaches to health care and new models of conducting research. Our graduates are prepared to transform healthcare delivery because they learned from all of you, the leaders in the field, with accomplishments of the people who make up MGH Institute of Health Professions.”

Noted Dean of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Laura Plummer, PT, DPT, EdD, during the panel discussion: “She's a true leader who has always understood that leadership isn't about accolades or titles. It's about empowering the people of an organization and about supporting initiatives that move the organization forward. Under Paula’s leadership, we have always been supported to be creative and innovative to think about how we can expand the reach of the IHP to help the people that we serve, and how we can support the mission and vision of the IHP. And that has been because of Paula. She's fostered a culture where all voices matter and are heard, and she's encouraged diverse perspectives.”

Milone-Nuzzo also supported the build-up of the Institute’s research; the portfolio grew to more than $50 million supported by more than 70 faculty-led grants.

These are highly competitive, difficult to get grants, shared panelist Jordan Green, PhD, CCC-SLP, Chief Scientific Advisor, Director of the Speech and Feeding Disorders Lab, Matina Soureis Horner Professor in Rehabilitation Sciences. “Each grant signifies innovation, discovery and hope for the many communities that we serve. Because of this remarkable growth, IHP is recognized now as one of the fastest growing research programs in the entire MGB system. That kind of progress was only possible because Paula was a tireless advocate for research. Paula ensured that research was not just a side effort, but a defining part of our identity as a leading health profession, education institution.

group of people sitting in chairs — (l-r) President Milone-Nuzzo's son John Paul Nuzzo, niece Jeanne Woodbury, brother John Milone, sister-in-law Sheila Fiodelsi, sister Pamela Fornal, daughter Jessica Scott, granddaughter Alanna Scott, husband Joe Nuzzo, and friends Sally Nutcher and Roger Nutcher, sat front row to support the president.

woman standing at podium with man sitting next to her — Harvard Business School Professor of Leadership and Management Amy Edmondson shared her research on the statistically significant relationship between psychological safety and team performance as the emcee, CBS Boston’s Steve Burton, looked on.

group of people sitting on a stage — CBS Boston Sports Director Steve Burton (l-r) introduces the panel speakers, Denis Stratford, Chief Operating Officer; Laura Plummer, PT, DPT, EdD, Dean of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences; George Thibault, MD, Former Chairman of the MGH Institute Board of Trustees; DEN alumna Leah Rothchild; and Jordan Green, PhD, CCC-SLP, Chief Scientific Advisor, Director of the Speech and Feeding Disorders Lab Matina Soureis Horner Professor in Rehabilitation Sciences.

man at a podium and man sitting next to him — Board Member and Associate Chief, Department of Psychiatry, MGH, John Herman, shared his thoughts on the connection between Edmondson’s research and Milone-Nuzzo’s work during her presidency.

Two women hugging — Board of Trustees Chair Jeannette Ives Ericson hugs President Milone-Nuzzo after announcing the President Paula Milone-Nuzzo Endowed Scholarship.

group of people with name tags getting a gift — President Milone-Nuzzo receives a gift from her granddaughter, Alanna.

crowd of people mingling — Following the symposium, guests enjoyed drinks, appetizers, a violin soloist, and each other’s company in the lobby of 1 CW.

woman hugging children — President Milone-Nuzzo hugged her family members at the reception.

Building Bridges
In typical Institute fashion, the celebration also featured a learning opportunity. Harvard Business School Professor of Leadership and Management Amy Edmondson shared her research on the statistically significant relationship between psychological safety and team performance. John Herman, MD, MGH Institute Board Member and Associate Chief, Department of Psychiatry, MGH and explained the connection between Edmondson’s research and Milone-Nuzzo’s work.

“In any field, whether in a hospital unit, a research lab or a classroom, it works, not because they avoid error, but because they learn together,” said Herman, who spoke while the image of geodesic domes associated with Buckminster Fuller, who Edmondson worked with early in her career, appeared on the screen behind him. “They create an environment where people can speak honestly, take risks and rely on one another's integrity. That insight is in its own way, the human architecture of our IHP. Paula has spent her presidency building a structure that holds nurses, therapists, physician assistants and scientists for a shared purpose, a structure as open and light as it is strong. And if you look again at the dome behind me, you can see why this moment feels so right. The dome is more than a shelter. It provides a space for what happens within it, attached, interdependent. Each connection shares and distributes responsibility for the whole to carry the weight. That's what we strive for in healthcare and education alike, the model of interpersonal structures safe enough that people within it can do their work. So, to honor Paula's remarkable leadership, it's my joy to introduce a remarkable thinker who reminds us that when we design the right structures and steel or spirit, we give our best work to work to work and room to thrive.”

Edmondson also related her work to Milone-Nuzzo’s.

“Leading in a way that enables teaming and enables learning is no small feat,” explained Edmondson. “Much of that learning and teaming today is interdisciplinary. It just has to be. Our world is too complex. Healthcare Delivery is too complex to be siloed, and so that won't work. We know that, but kind of overcoming the various hurdles to that remains challenging. The research I've done is so beautifully reflected in Paula's work, in her work in action, as well as in her book on leadership. I think there's a way in which my ideas get enacted every day in your Institute because of that bridge. So, I celebrate this bridge builder with all of you.”

The importance of interprofessional education was one of the reasons that Paula was selected to be the Institute’s sixth president.

“She understood... medicine is a team sport, and the education should reflect that,” said George Thibault, MD, during the panel discussion; Thibault was the chairman of the MGH Institute Board of Trustees at the time and led the search for a new president. “A missing link in our educational process is that we expect people to work as teams, but we’ve set up an educational process which historically has siloed people so they don’t work together, they don’t understand what the contributions can be of everybody from a different perspective, and how they can make for better decisions. Paula understood that.”

Milone-Nuzzo also understood the importance of the relationship with Mass General Brigham to both the past and the future.

“Our future is strong because we have a rich past,” observed Milone-Nuzzo. “Our founding partner, Massachusetts General Hospital, gave us a strong foundation and has allowed us to grow up to our stature today. We could not have grown so successfully without the support of Dr. David Brown, former president of MGH and now President of the [Mass General Brigham] Academic Medical Centers. He has always been in the IHP’s corner, and he made his support for us known in the system. Our feature is built on that strong foundation, but now it's an integral member of the Mass General Brigham system, one of the largest and most influential health care delivery systems in the country, and it provides us with a platform to continue revolutionizing health professions education for the improvement of healthcare.

Full Circle
One of the people in attendance was Anne Caldwell, the fourth president of the Institute, who is one of those people who may not have been able to foresee the success the Institute is enjoying today.

“Anne Caldwell's directive from the Board of Trustees was close the place, find some place to merge with, or figure out how to make it work,” said Stratford.

Fortunately, she did and when Milone-Nuzzo began her time as President, one of the commitments she made was build on the work of those who had come before.

“I committed to respecting and honoring the legacy of Dr. Knowles and Dr. Sanders, the legacy they provided for us, and to build upon that legacy with stellar and innovative academic programs and a cutting edge into professional curriculum,” Milone-Nuzzo told the crowd. “The vision, creativity and resilience of so many who have done the work of leading in this institution has put us in the successful position we are in today. Leaders like Anne Caldwell, the fourth president of IHP, who is, I was significant in rescuing us from closure.”

Milone-Nuzzo contributions to that legacy will be recognized with the establishment of the President Paula Milone-Nuzzo Endowed Scholarship, which will support students who embody the values that have defined her career and her presidency — commitment to service, interprofessional collaboration and compassionate leadership. When this news was shared with Symposium audience, the MGH Institute’s president shed tears of joy.

“Her legacy will continue in a way that mirrors her life's work by supporting the future of our health professionals,” said Ives Ericson. “This endowment is more than a tribute to Paula, for all of us here, it is a promise. A promise of the future, a promise that the next generation of IHP students will be nurtured, encouraged and empowered in the same spirit that Paula has shown every day of her leadership.”

For the last eight years, Milone-Nuzzo’s full title has been president and John Hilton Knowles professor in honor of one of the early leaders, who, along with Dr. Charlie Sanders, dreamed of what the Institute could become. His son, John H, "Joe" Knowles, Jr. MBA, MPA, serves on the Institute Board and closed the celebration.

““That's my family's name. That's my name. She's carried that name for eight years. So when I say Paula has done us proud, I'm saying quite a bit.

“You have not only sustained that dream, you've expanded it beyond what they could have imagined, and you have brought us to our next horizon to chart the course the health professions must take to ensure that we fulfill the promises we make to our patients. My dad said, the world needs iconoclast. That's how we make progress. Thank you, Paula, for how you've done what you've done, a true iconoclast. And he said, here is no easy route to the Promised Land, lest it be through the pursuit of justice and losing oneself in work and unselfish purpose. This has been your mission, Paula, and so it has been ours. Thank you.”