Ariadne Labs ‘Motivates Me to Do My Best Every Day’.

If you were to ask Robbie Singal (SPH’14) for career advice, she would encourage you to “say ‘yes’ to new experiences.”

That mindset and strategy is in part what led the School of Public Health alum to join Ariadne Labs, the Boston-based joint health systems innovation center at Brigham Women’s Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in 2014. In the past six years, Singal has assumed the roles of senior program manager of the Safe Surgery Program, senior manager of Improvement and Implementation Science, associate director of Science and Technology, and since March, director of Science and Technology.

Singal says there is no such thing as a “typical” day at Ariadne, where teams of researchers, data scientists, physicians, implementation specialists, and more, develop interventions that address failures within healthcare delivery systems. She leads the strategic planning process and budget for a team of biostatisticians, research scientists, and software engineers who collaborate with programs to design, test, and spread their interventions globally.

“The people and the mission” are what Singal enjoys most about working at Ariadne.

“I work with the most talented, smart, quirky, kind, and engaging people,” she says. “I have always worked at a mission-driven organization—Ariadne’s mission to improve health outcomes for every patient, everywhere, every time, is one that motivates me to do my best every day.”

Currently, Singal is focused on developing the Science & Technology Platform’s strategic plan for the new fiscal year, but the team dedicated much of their time since March to the COVID-19 response, collaborating with external partners to create resources to help Massachusetts superintendents consider how to more safely reopen schools in the fall, as well as devising principles for global vaccine delivery.

Prior to her current role, Singal helped manage Ariadne’s Atlas Initiative, a venture that provides tools to healthcare institutions to assist with the implementation of quality improvement projects. On the Safe Surgery team, she collaborated with Johnson & Johnson on a plan to improve patient safety when a new surgical device is used for the first time in an operating room. Singal helped develop a Device Briefing Tool (DBT), a checklist that improves communication among surgical teams when they use devices for the first time, as well as standardized and multidisciplinary training for surgeons and nurses to guide their use of the DBT and new devices.

Singal, who studied international health in the DrPH program, credits faculty members for emphasizing public health theories and methods, and she says the coursework and rigorous DrPH requirements improved her skills and confidence as a public health researcher and leader.

“I found all of my teachers to be accessible and engaged in students’ development,” says Singal. “My advisor, Don Thea, and the former head of the DrPH program, Gene Declercq, provided stellar mentorship and guidance throughout the course of my time at SPH and helped me balance my work, school and personal commitments.”

For students who are considering a career in healthcare delivery, Singal has more sage advice:

“I always encourage people to try to focus and get really good at a technical public health skill—such as qualitative research methods, evaluation, or biostatistics—before heading into a management role,” she says. “Having hands-on experience makes you a better manager and team leader.”

Join SPH and alumni for the upcoming “Conversations with Alumni” event. Development and Alumni Relations and the Career and Practicum Office will co-host monthly virtual alumni conversations to highlight the careers of distinguished alumni across sectors and industries. Programming will include interactive audio and visual panelists and participants, and will include break-out rooms for networking after the event. To learn more about the event’s faculty and alumni speakers, email us at sphalum@bu.edu.

—Jillian McKoy