Elizabeth Kimball MAT’71

Elizabeth Kimball MAT’71, 69, a management consultant, died Nov. 3, 2017. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she received master’s degrees from Wesleyan and from Wheelock College, and then a PhD in education psychology, specializing in cognition and learning, from Catholic University, where her research focused on systems thinking. During the Carter Administration she served at the Office of Personnel Management and helped to design the federal government’s Senior Executive Service. In 1982 she realized the power of the Internet and was a pioneer in developing online teams that could generate and implement new ideas. She then became a leader in the organizational development movement and a global network of professional groups. In 2000, she served as executive producer of Group Jazz, a company she founded to assist organizations and communities to develop the capacity to identify critical problems, engage those affected in conversations, and develop collaborative initiatives to address the issues. She also was a founder and board member of the Plexus Institute, a non-profit focused on applying ideas from complexity science to organizational and social problems. Using the management technique known as Adaptive Positive Deviance, Plexus worked with 40 hospitals to eliminate transmission of MRSA infections by engaging employees at all levels. The success of the MRSA program allowed her to return to her roots in education, as Plexus received grants to determine how the APD approach could be used to improve results in underperforming inner-city schools. Her husband, John Cooney, her stepmother, and her sister and brother survive.