The Real Sim Center: Birmingham - Special AI Episode!

Melissa Lowther is the Product Marketing Manager at Elevate Healthcare, where she bridges deep simulation expertise with strategic product positioning to drive innovation in AV and center management solutions. With over 12 years in the simulation field, Melissa brings a unique blend of operational insight and marketing acumen, shaped by her hands-on experience supporting pre-licensure nursing, in-situ hospital programs, and continuing education initiatives. A Certified Healthcare Simulation Operations Specialist (CHSOS) since 2017 and CHSOS-Advanced since 2022, Melissa was inducted into the SSH Academy of Fellows at IMSH 2023 and named IMSH’s first-ever Industry Person of the Year in 2025. Her passion for simulation and commitment to elevating healthcare education continue to guide her work in shaping Elevate’s product strategy and customer engagement.

Tara Edmonds is the Director of Assessment in the Office of Standardized Patient Education (OSPE) and a Faculty Instructor in the Department of Medical Education. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Pathology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. After completion of her doctorate and post-doctoral training, Dr. Edmonds transitioned into the field of medical education where she gained industry experience assessing healthcare professional practice patterns, measuring educational outcomes, and executing needs assessments for the design of future educational initiatives. Since transitioning back to academia, her primary interests are in the optimization of the design and implementation of assessment activities, supporting educational scholarship and research related to health professional education, and overseeing the application of best practices in standardized patient methodology in the OSPE Center. Dr. Edmonds works closely with UAB health professional educators to develop new or enhance existing simulation curriculum that includes SP-based assessment of clinical competency. She is integral to the process of case and checklist development and assessing learner outcomes to provide faculty and programs with insight into learner performance. Dr. Edmonds is responsible for process improvement and quality control in the SP center and has oversight of center policies and procedures. Her efforts in this area were central to OSPE, as part of the larger Simulation Consortium at UAB, attaining accreditation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.

Zac joined the UAB's SP Center in 2005 as an SP. After serving in the role of SP for 9 years, Zac was hired in 2014 as the first SP Educator UAB’s SP Center, known as the Clinical Skills Center at that time. Zac’s talents and effective supervisory skills earned him a promotion in 2018 to SP Educator II. The role of the SP Educator in SP Center operations goes beyond training SPs for an event. The SP Educator is responsible for working with programs and faculty to design and schedule an event and provide logistical support to make effective use of learner and faculty time. The SP Educator assures are audio/visual requirements and needs are met and has ongoing supervision of all things related to IT support. The SP Educator has a supervisory role in assuring the movement of SPs and learners in and out of clinic rooms adheres to the time allotted in the event design. They essentially orchestrate the symphony of human players as the move around in and out of character during formative and summative assessments. Zac continues to work closely with schools and programs to assure quality events are scheduled and trained for. He continues to pursue professional development opportunities to hone his skills. Finally, Zac, due to his time spent in the SP Center, has a great working relationship with all the ~90 SPs currently employed by OSPE which is a huge asset to OSPEs continued success.