Rodrigue Lab

James R. Rodrigue, PhD

Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry
Transplant Surgery

The Rodrigue Lab seeks to answer the central question: how can we reduce the gap between the number of people who need organ transplants and the availability of organs for transplantation?

In recent years, the number of deceased organ donors has remained flat and the number of living donors has declined. In the meantime, the number of people waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant continues to rise, with over 119,900 people currently on the national transplant waiting list.

Together with colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the New England Donor Services, and several transplant programs around the country, we are developing novel strategies to increase the rates of both living and deceased donation. These strategies address individual and systematic barriers we have identified through earlier research that are associated with lower organ donation rates.

The success of our research program is due largely to the collaborative partnerships we have with federal and state governments, organ procurement organizations, and researchers from diverse professional backgrounds, including behavioral and medical sciences, public health, surgery, bioethics, nursing, and health services.