An award-winning sociologist, Michalec has been internationally recognized as a disrupter and galvanizing force within healthcare delivery and health professions education - challenging common educational and training processes and developing evidence-supported practices to cultivate humility, empathy, and well-being among healthcare professionals and health profession students.  

Michalec’s work also explores health disparities within the health professions, focusing on how the structural design of the professional pathways perpetuates the lack of diversity of the healthcare workforce and systems-based approaches to enhance professionals’ and students’ sense of belonging in the clinical and educational learning environments.

He is the director of the Center for Advancing Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research (CAIPER) and an associate professor in the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation.