Dr. Jennifer Posa earned her PhD in Psychology with a specialization in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Capella. While consulting Fortune 100 companies on population health strategy at Mayo Clinic, she began asking deeper questions about how organizations actually work. That curiosity would go on to shape her doctoral journey and contributions to the field.
Q: Looking back, how did the flexibility and structure of your doctoral program support your ability to advance professionally while deepening your expertise?
Dr. Jennifer Posa: Before enrolling in Capella’s Industrial-Organizational Psychology PhD program, I was an active researcher and practitioner in population health, working at Mayo Clinic as a Strategy Consultant providing guidance to Fortune 100 companies on their population health strategy execution. It was an excellent job with a phenomenal organization.
Through my work as a practitioner, I discovered that evidence-based programs behaved differently when placed within organizations – a direct result of workplace culture, driven by the behavior of leaders, teams, and employees. Identifying measures and building the research base to further understand this dynamic was critical to advancing our field. The opportunity to play a role in this effort was a tremendous career opportunity, but one that required me to supplement my knowledge base. At that point, a doctoral degree in industrial-organizational psychology was the optimal next step – while maintaining my professional career to ensure immediate application of my learnings.
As I reflect on that experience, I distinctly remember spending at least three years debating the feasibility of pursuing a doctoral degree. I had pursued traditional in-person programs for my undergraduate and master’s degrees, but a doctorate would require much more flexibility so I could continue working in my field and raise my three young daughters.
The flexibility and structure of the Capella program enabled me to complete my doctoral work while continuing to grow my career in meaningful ways. I was able to immediately apply my learnings to my work with organizations and practitioners, apply theories to build strong cultures of health and well-being, and significantly contribute to the evidence base – serving as lead author on multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, including a meta-analysis and a measurement guide for the field.
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