Connie Collingsworth, who is the general counsel, secretary and member of the executive leadership team of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, toured the UNMC campus last week, visiting the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit and meeting with campus leaders to discuss the iEXCEL℠ initiative.
Collingsworth met with Phil Smith, M.D., medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, Angela Hewlett, M.D., the unit’s associate medical director, and Shelly Schwedhelm, director of the emergency department, trauma & preparedness services at Nebraska Medicine, for the tour of the unit.
Dr. Smith, Dr. Hewlett and Schwedhelm fielded Collingsworth’s questions on the unit, explained security and biosafety protocols and displayed some of the state-of-the-art equipment while discussing the history of the unit.
Following the tour, Collingsworth attended a presentation by Pam Boyers, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for simulation, and Dele Davies, M.D., vice chancellor for academic affairs, on the iEXCEL℠ initiative.
Collingsworth, a Nebraska native and graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law, was speaking at the University of Nebraska at Omaha later in the day, and she took the opportunity to visit UNMC and learn about some of its initiatives.
She said she was glad she had the opportunity to learn about the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit and the iEXCEL℠ initiative, applauding “the cutting-edge thinking and the vision that these people obviously have, to have the forethought to get these kind of innovative ideas going.”
Collingsworth was in Omaha to speak at the Women Investing in Nebraska grant presentation ceremony.
Collingsworth’s nonprofit activities currently include serving as a board member, chair of the Compensation Committee and secretary of Women’s World Banking, which is focused on expanding the economic empowerment of low-income women in the developing world.
Collingsworth also is a board member of the Northwest Chapter of the National
Association of Corporate Directors and serves on the Advisory Council of DirectWomen, whose mission is to increase the representation of women attorneys on corporate boards.